Safeguarding
Safeguarding
The Woodbridge Group of Churches takes its duty and obligation to protect all people extremely seriously. We have adopted the national Church of England’s robust procedures and guidelines and are continually reviewing our local implementation of policies and procedures. You can find out more about the national policies and procedures at: www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding
Each parish should have a local Parish Safeguarding Officer (although we currently have two vacancies and the team covers to support each other). If you have a safeguarding concern about something related to an incident in our church life or our safeguarding processes or policies you should contact one of them in the first instance. Their contact details are here: Contact Details PSOs October 2023
If you need to obtain advice out of hours and it is not a matter that you need to discuss with the police our partner organisation ‘thirtyone:eight‘ provide a Helpline 0303 003 11 11 (please ensure that you tell them that you are calling from the Diocese of Bristol).
If your case is urgent and you cannot reach the local contacts, the Diocesan Safeguarding Officer is Adam Bond (based in Bristol) who can be contacted on 07543 504977, or by email: adam.bond@bristoldiocese.org. He is responsible for ensuring any safeguarding allegations are responded to appropriately and is independent of the parishes.
You can find other useful information at www.bristol.anglican.org/safeguarding,
In an emergency, when somebody’s well-being is risk, please call the Police on 99907543 504977
PDF Downloads
The two documents below are the current policy documents adopted across the Woodbridge Group by each PCC in 2023 and readopted without change in 2024. Each PCC has signed a copy of of these template documents.
Safeguarding Policy and procedures April 2023
Church Recruitment by PCCs policy and procedures April 2023
Please note that some links in the policies above are now invalid. The link to ‘forms of abuse’ in the Safeguarding Policy is replaced by this link to the Church of England Safeguarding Manual – section 2
The link to ‘Allegations Management’ is now at the Diocese of Bristol Safeguarding Resources page
The link in section 1.iii of the ‘Church Recruitment’ document is replaced by this one
Role descriptions for Children’s Workers, Churchwardens, Pastoral Visitors, PCC members, PCC Secretaries, PCC Treasurers, Parish Safeguarding Officers, and Sidepersons are in the document below:
