Like everyone else I have only had sight of the SCIE report for the past couple of days. In the middle of moving house, it has only been possible to scan briefly the 140 pages of text which contain an independent survey the Church of England and its management of safeguarding issues. Clearly, I need more time to read the recommendations in detail. What the document gives is a survey of the safeguarding achievements of the 42 dioceses in the Church of England. In addition, and perhaps from our perspective more importantly, there is an attempt to record the experience of 50+ survivors and their experiences of dealing with the Church. As we might expect, the picture is mixed but the reviewer notes some improvements in the past four years or so. Because I cannot claim to have read the full report, I want to focus my comments on a crucial sentence which has been highlighted by several other commentators. It concerns our two archbishops. The sentence which is a quote from a survivor, reads ‘the current two archbishops and the previous two archbishops of Canterbury have all failed to be open about major safeguarding failures’.
In many ways this sentence and particularly the word ‘open’ sums up many of the problems about safeguarding that are reported over and over again by survivors. The kind of comments that I have heard suggest that survivors of abuse feel that they are, in bringing complaints, pitted against what feels like a closed system. In my reflections I want to consider a wider question. Why does an institution, here represented by two archbishops, find it so hard to be open in this issue of responding to failures?
Each of us is born into an intimate community we call the family. Later on, we may become part of other communities. Some of us join the church and this extends our experience of community. At its best it links us to God and other Christians, potentially from every part of the world. Community is a word which implies that we know people personally. We are bound to them in relationships of love and respect and this leads on to the possibility of being able to trust them. We often speak about ‘Christian community’ and there is a special word from the New Testament to describe this reality. This is the word koinonia, often translated as communion or fellowship. The word contains the double idea that our Christian relationships reach out simultaneously to our fellow Christians and to the divine. The Orthodox theologian John Zizoulas described the Eucharist as the central activity of the church because it enacts communion for Christians with God and with each other in a tangible way. This quality of relating beyond ourselves in and through the Eucharist is a central part of our Christian identity. The church of course exists not only in its local manifestation, however important this might be. It has an organisational aspect. A denominational structure, such as the Church of England, allows hundreds of local communities to be bonded together for support, learning and oversight. Organisation implies rules, discipline and defined common aims. Bishops and archbishops are part of what enables the church organisation to operate through their overseeing role.
The word ‘institution’, often used in describing the Anglican church, brings in another dimension to our church organisation. An organisation is an institution when it has a formal aspect. This will be seen in things like constitutions, traditions and links with the past. We could say that an institution is an organisation with extras. These bind it in distinctive ways to the wider society. Sometimes being an institution has advantages. It is suggestive of stability and permanence which people want and respect. But these same qualities also put brakes on flexibility and make change a very cumbersome slow process. An organisation without a history or traditions can fairly easily reinvent itself. The institution, on the other hand, may take decades to enact change because there is so much to be disentangled every time it wants changes to take place. As an aside this may be what is making the Brexit process so slow. Britain has acquired so many extra hidden links through its membership of the European Community that it is never going to be easy to cut these links and pretend they never existed.
Among my interests is to try to work out how institutions like the Church affect and change the people who belong to them. I am especially interested in looking at those who have to be in charge of the institution, one which is deeply rooted in the past and hard to change. Because of the power of what we might call institutional inertia, we must expect that most of those who take responsibility for an institution like the Church of England have to submit to this slow pedantic way of operating. Leadership of a slow ship like the Church of England is possibly an impossible task. The obstructions put in the way of a new broom may be impossible to overcome. Inertia, tradition, a preoccupation with buildings and survival will normally prove more powerful than any individuals put in charge. The fate of most church leaders is to become a slave of the institution rather than its inspirer. I wonder how many of those chosen to be bishops in the Church of England realise at the beginning how difficult it will to make a real difference within the institution of which they are nominally leaders.
It is in the context of institutional powerlessness and bondage to unseen forces that I read the critical comments by SCIE towards archbishops past and present. Openness about the needs of survivors/victims is a task not straightforward for a cumbersome institution dedicated to the demands of survival and continuity. The aspect of the church than can respond to these needs is the church operating at the level of community or communion. It is there that issues of brokenness, pain and forgiveness can be addressed. Even though the public sees many failures at the national level, the local church, handling the demand for true wholeness, has still much to offer.
Every report that is published on the topic of safeguarding seems to produce a call for mandatory reporting to an outside body in cases of abuse. Bishops and archbishops do need to release their control over cases of abuse. This is not only because they lack the competence and necessary skills to deal with them, but as the SCIE survivor observed, they are too encumbered with the institutional bondage of their positions. Are they able to be the right people to say and do the right thing when confronted with individuals who call out for healing and justice?
Well, yes, actually I think they are the right people, because at the end of the day they are human beings.
By going along with the cold and narcissistic attitudes of the institution they are just prolonging the agony.
Referring to “The fate of most church leaders is to be a slave….”
Don’t they willingly submit to being a slave because of the multitude of benefits it provides , they willingly give up Christianity in favour of Churchianity and get intoxicated by the gravy from the train.
Referring to your comments on local church ; it does have much to offer and could be the salvation , but too often Churchianity rules there too at a lower level.
Sadly for me , it was at local level where my abuse originated.
I am also generating some time to read the SCIE report ; I hope you will give more of your interesting views when you have fully digested it.
gods peace
Chris Perry
Inertia can also occur simply because of considerations such as confidentiality, not wanting to find an abuser guilty without evidence, thinking bullying is just part of life, and not that important, that sex abuse is impossible to prove….. It’s all just too much.
I’ve read the report. Briefly, at least. All fair enough, but vaguely disappointing. Only very brief mentions of bullying, which is much more common. But quite a good summary. If they take it on board! Now there’s the thing. How long before every Diocese does it? And how do you ensure that everyone who is active, does have a DBS anyway? I know of cases where people retired, and continued in service, without a PTO. How do you deal with that?
Athena, by ‘continued in service’ do you mean they took services at parish churches? That ought to result in disciplinary action for the parish clergy who invited them. Or if during a vacancy, the rural dean and archdeacon should speak firmly to the churchwardens.
If it’s funerals, there’s not much the Church can do about it, sadly.
Just carried on as they were before. !!!! I know. I told the people concerned and was greeted with shrugs. So I told someone further up. I wasn’t involved after that, so I don’t know what happened. I also mentioned it to people from Head Office who were doing random checks on safeguarding training. The response was open mouths! But whose job is it to check? Naive beyond belief if you don’t.
I assume these clergy has left the parishes they worked in full time? When you say they just ‘carried on as before’, do you mean they had had PTO and were taking services but then lost PTO and continued taking services? The authorities should certainly stop that.
Sorry, trying not to be too specific. But if you are either a Reader or SSM who turns 70. You take Emeritus, but carry on doing what you were doing before without PTO, and therefore without a DBS check. Whose job is it to see that doesn’t happen?
That sound sleek a matter of diocesan policy. Her Ewa some confusion in one of my dioceses as to whether emeritus should go on ministering or not. Clearly if they haven’t a DBS clearance they shouldn’t be ministering.
Sorry, your transmission was breaking up! 😀. There certainly was confusion. But as you say, they shouldn’t be doing it without DBS certificate.
Oh dear, I should have checked before I posted. Arthritic fingers combined with autocorrect gives some interesting readings.
PTO means permission to officiate, for those who don’t know. I don’t have it, despite having served two curacies, and was told recently I would not get it. A painful path for me.
Here is probably why, although there has never been a proper discussion of this issue with me by anyone in authority.
Your sentence “The Orthodox theologian John Zizoulas described the Eucharist as the central activity of the church because it enacts communion for Christians with God and with each other in a tangible way.” This notion is in my view unhelpful. The true church exists where the gates of hell are being stormed by people who obey the commands of Jesus (Matt 16:18 and 28:20). That’s the central activity. As I read the gospel accounts of the last supper, Jesus was saying, “when you have a meal together, take a moment to remember my death for you.” We seem to have turned this side comment into a central matter, and dispensed with the meal as well. To me this is not right. Why are we so unwilling to do what Jesus said?
Now, gentle reader, would you give me permission to mouth such thoughts to a congregation?
David, that’s an interesting idea and I partly agree with it. If the eucharist were indeed the central activity of the Church and definitive of Christians (a some hold it to be), that would exclude Quakers and the Salvation Army. And they seem to get along quite well without Holy Communion. Interestingly, both denominations are strong on social action; ‘storming the gates of hell’, as you put it.
But to return to the subject of the blog: I’m sorry that you have been denied PTO and that it’s painful for you. And it’s inexcusable that no one has told you why. I presume your DBS clearance is in order? I know you’ve been very ill and that must have made it difficult to get to safeguarding training.
Access to training is a difficult issue, especially for a widely scattered diocese like mine (York). The nearest venue to me is more than an hour’s drive away.
Thanks Janet. Kind of you. I’m letting sleeping dogs lie at present. See how we go.
All the best, David. I’m glad I never got around to taking you off my prayer list! I’m being re-licensed at the end of the month after five years. That’s been sore.
Very best wishes for your re-licensing, Athena. That will be a joyous occasion.
Thanks.
English Athena, I hope the re-licensing will be Jordanesque for you recalling Jesus’ baptism. Thank you so much for praying. Wonderfully effective – I am fully fit, no medication or anything, and planning to climb a Brecon Beacon in May. The sun is shining here as I write.
great!
Having absorbed the report my main feeling is that the structure is wrong.
Most Diocese will have got a fairly good report and can prance about with their tail feathers in the air whilst ignoring the big issue which is the survivor survey, because it is church wide and not diocese specific.
In particular,my Diocese of Derby have a report which cannot reflect the catalogue of failures they have made and continue to make because the SCIE “didn’t have time” to consult the only people who really matter.
The survivor survey just doesn’t make up for it because the Diocese still have their OK report.
I can only see survivors being treated as 2nd class citizens.
I didn’t even know about the survey because my DSA kept it quiet.
When Sheila Fish comes back from her break she needs to reflect on the under achievement of the review and politely inform the Diocese of Derby that their glowing report is misleading, and they should start doing some proper safeguarding.
Well said Chris. As SCIE boasts they work collaboratively with users of services to produce their findings it is odd that they accepted a contract from the church that originally had no survivor involvement at all. When enough survivors complained they decided to add on a tokenistic survey that was always going to be diesnfranchised from the audits. I made a formal complaint to SCIE because, like you, I felt the survivors should be diocese specific so ‘league tables’ could be created and responsibilty taken. As you rightly say, as it is now dioceses can ignore it. Complaining was not only a complete waste of time but reabusive.
The survey has no ethical compliance on it, (external safeguarding measures) so some DSA’s wouldn’t display it, and also meant there were no ethical considerations given to distribution, so only online, very limited access etc. With only 58 people responding and 11 of those being satisfied with their response from the church the survey can easily be ignored and with Meg Munn being a former colleague of the chair of SCIE and a former CEO of SCIE sitting on the NSSG this was never going to go anywhere.
As you say the structure is wrong but also it came from the wrong place, SCIE should never have accepted a contract that did not have survivors at its heart. Makes me incredibly angry.
Thank you Trish , ive just typed a full response but it has just disappeared into the ether.
I will ask one of the geeks at work to see where it is on my phone
Cheers
Malevolent forces at work Chris! Otherwise known as the NST 🙂
Hi Trish,
Thanks for your engagement and support over this issue.
You seem to be more on the ball than me , so i may seem a bit uninformed at times.
I made 2 complaints so far to SCIE , and Sheila Fish was quite humble and accepting of my points ; but she has gone on leave for a while.
I also contacted my diocese about the falseness of their presentation of their audit report on their website; it didnt mention the survey !!
I havent had any dealings with the NST yet , but it is overdue.
Ive heard good and bad about them so i will have to try my hand.
Should we be hopeful about the NSSG respose ?
Are they going to start listening ?
Is the safe spaces project up and running yet, do you have any info on this?
I hope i can keep connected with you on this issue.
Regards
Hi Chris, well done making actual complaints, I know it’s tiring but it is important. The trouble that I have found with SCIE is that they are, as you say, humble and accepting, but useless, everything comes down to,’well we will certainly review all this for our own learning,’ which is all well and good, but not much help in the here and now. I will say though that the formal complaint process is fairly well managed so if you feel up to it you could request to go through that process.
Though in lots of ways it seems a ‘done deal’ I imagine a lot of this stuff will be used at the July IICSA hearings, so if nothing else, certainly worth sending your concerns and any correspondence to them as I am doing as background information.
I think you have to try and maintain a sense of perspective when dealing with the NST but as long as you don’t get too upset by poor responses the more of us that make a fuss the better. There is going to be an ombudsman appointed at some point to deal with unresolved issues and sounds like you could be a candidate so don’t give up.
I am not particularly hopeful of the NSSG but worth sending a message to Munn on the NST website to connect with her, let her know you exist and would like your voice to be heard.
Safe spaces and telephone counselling are both unknown to me but I do know that the safe spaces project has had a lot of issues attached to it so do approach with caution if you decide on this route.
Let me know how you get on Chris, you sound strong and courageous so I am sure that however you decide to take things forward it will add to the pressure on them to do better.
Take care
IMHO openness will only be achieved when there is an independent person to investigate abuse and decision making that doesn’t have a vested interest in the status quo. I am a survivor and also used to be a diocesan youth officer with a role in safeguarding so seen both sides. Over a decade ago I led a workshop at a church safeguarding officers conference where we split into 3 groups for a case study on alleged abuse by clergy. One group took survivors perspective, one safeguarding officers, third the bishop. While sympathetic to survivor experience, both the other groups felt a responsibility to protect the church. I structured the workshop this way because I had been advocating with some survivors who were in the process of reporting, and safeguarding officers kept telling us they were supporting survivors. I wanted to show them that because their role is to advise bishop aka diocese, whenever there is a conflict they defend the institution. Like Justin Welby is now. The workshop meant they showed me my experience was accurate, although in the discussion afterwards many were reluctant to accept this and the implications for their role. We need independent investigation, mandatory reporting and advocacy support for survivors
That’s really interesting. I’d like to read more about it, if you still have the case study and group comments. My email is jhfife@icloud.com
Best wishes for Easter
Thank you Janet. I have just emailed you.
Thank you Jane,
This is an important post which really says it all.
If you repeated the workshop now just in my Diocase , i guess the result would be the same (just with more bullshit).
The Church itself says that cases arent resolved until they are resolved from the perspective of the victim ; but they just cant do it.
This issue is constantly on my mind.
I hope the new ombudsman has a strong stomach.
Thank you Jane. You appear to have touched a nerve. If you wished you could write this workshop up in more detail for this blog as a guest post. There is a lot of blindness about the perspective of survivors and I have been banging on about this for some time. My email is parsvic2@gmail.com .
Thank you Stepehen. I would love to do a guest blog. I have emailed you.
Hi Jane, oh my goodness well done!
I don’t know if you have read Meg Munn’s latest blog post but the question has rightly been asked as to why actual survivors’ aren’t used in training. I do feel she should hear your experience to show it can be achieved. I have been asked to contribute to training in writing but it’s all very anonymised, not at my request, and simply doesn’t have the same impact.
Do you think that working as part of a diocese helped because they felt they had more control over you?
Thank you for your kind comments, Trish.
I did the workshop as one of the founders of Survivors Voices, a survivor-led voluntary organisation. So not control as such, but I knew some of the participants from my previous professional roles. That may have helped them to trust me to lead the session.
I happen to be a qualified social worker and teacher but when I do survivor-led training using my life experience these skills help but are not essential. It is so frustrating that trainers are still reluctant to work with people with lived experience and there is no good reason for it. I have supported many survivors and young people to design and lead training with social workers, teachers, youth workers, clergy etc. over many years. It is extremely impactful and means the training is much more authentic. It does need training and support, but this is not difficult.
I am sorry you have not been allowed to contribute more, if you wanted to. Survivors perspectives should be central to safeguarding training, especially when it looks at reporting and support for survivors.
I will definitely be in touch with Meg Munn. I have been out of the country and just catching up with latest state of play. Just checked out her blog, she says some good things. Does she have the power and influence to change things, do you think?
Good to read your comments Jane.
You have good credentials and should be able to influence Meg.
We all need to keep pushing her so she doesnt become part of the establishment.
We have to keep her victim focussed.
That’s so nice to know Jane as I belong (very quietly) to Survivors Voices. It was when I received things from them that I realised just how screwed up the church had made me becaue I thought ‘oh this is really good, I wonder what the catch is,’ and have remained ‘frozen’ ever since. As Chris says your credentials are really good and, admit it or not, the church is very elitist so that is important in getting your voice heard.
Meg Munn can ‘talk the talk’ but look at her radio interview about MR on the Mandate Now twitter page and it all becomes a bit worrying, with I suspect, more than a bit of institutional protection going on.
A new Director of National Safeguarding (Melissa Caslake) has been appointed but not started. On paper she looks good and someone who may listen, and it’s important to get to these people quickly before they become subsumed by the system.
If you do a guest post on here I will make sure that is seen by my connections in the church. Survivors Voices has exactly the right tone to engage with the church, survivor focussed without being overly judgemental or critical, which just shuts the church down. I have spent years building up relationships with church staff and am always very supportive of them trying to challenge the system from within because, I believe, it is their rebellion, not their resigning, that will eventually make a difference.
So glad you bothered to comment, yours is a name to watch I feel!