Building child safeguarding capabilities in the Catholic Church
Porticus is supporting the roll-out of a new safeguarding tool to identify how Catholic institutions can be better equipped to ensure children and young people in their care are safe.
Child sexual abuse is pervasive worldwide, with an estimated prevalence of around 12%. Inquiries into institutions including the Catholic Church have revealed abuse amid a systemic failure to protect and respond. The organisations responsible urgently need to address the factors that enable abuse, and create safe conditions for all vulnerable people.
One of our partners, the Institute of Child Protection Studies, part of the Australian Catholic University, has developed a peer-reviewed Safeguarding Capabilities Survey to assess organisations’ capacity to create safer environments for children. Developed in Australia, the survey—as well as being used across Australia in Catholic and secular youth-serving organisations—is now being rolled out in a pilot focusing on organisations in the Catholic Church internationally. Participants are being identified through the Global Safeguarding Alliance, an emerging coalition of research centres committed to making the Catholic Church safer.
The survey explores the knowledge, attitudes and awareness of staff and volunteers, whether priests or lay, around preventing the sexual abuse of children. Any organisation using the survey can access an interactive dashboard which they can use to improve their safeguarding practices and identify the resources they will need to make lasting change. Measuring baseline levels of safeguarding capacity and tracking improvements over time is an important evolution in the Catholic Church’s response to abuse. International data from the survey will be aggregated and analysed to improve global knowledge about safeguarding in the Church.
“There are vast gaps in the knowledge we have about levels of abuse within the Church, what is being done to prevent it, and whether this works. Greater knowledge, collaboration and innovation is needed to shed light onto this dark and complex area and to prevent abuse in any Catholic institute around the world.”
William Kent, Porticus Grant Manager
Photos copyright Andy Aitchison
