Engagement with Catholic Church continues our work with faith-based organisations
Over the past couple of weeks, I had the pleasure to participate in events delivered by the Catholic Church, as part of our ongoing engagement with faith-based organisations: Steve's update.
At a Catholic Religious Australia safeguarding community of practice meeting in Sydney and a symposium in the Riverina, I outlined the role of the Office of the Children’s Guardian under the Reportable Conduct and Child Safe Schemes.
The events held this month are part of the work of the Catholic Church to develop a model for significantly strengthening their systems for safeguarding children both within the church and beyond.
Standard 9 of the Child Safe Standards requires that implementation of the Child Safe Standards needs to be continuously reviewed and improved.
Against this background, I was pleased to learn at the symposium that the Wagga Wagga Diocese has recently reformed its central safeguarding service to help the Diocese apply the Child Safe Standards consistently across its many organisations throughout its 29 parishes.
The symposium also featured distinguished guests, including Father Hans Zollner (Director of the Institute of Anthropology: Interdisciplinary Studies on Human Dignity and Care at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, and Reverend Dr Jake Mudge (Director of Pastoral Work, Corpus Christi College, Diocese of Sandhurst, Victoria).
One of my points of focus related to the challenges in effectively managing and investigating allegations under the Reportable Conduct Scheme. The Scheme is designed to complement other protective measures, such as the Child Safe and Working with Children Check Schemes.
The Reportable Conduct Scheme comes into play when an allegation of reportable conduct is made. This gives us oversight of the progress of the investigation of matters, including ensuring the development and implementation of appropriate investigative strategies and adherence to procedural fairness requirements. Our primary concern is the safety and wellbeing of any child who is involved in these matters.
At the symposium, I also discussed substantial improvements we have made in our handling and finalisation of reportable conduct cases.
To drive greater consistency and efficiency in our practice, we have also just launched a new team – the Intake Group – which will screen all new reportable conduct notifications, enquiries, complaints and other related information, to determine how these matters should be managed, including assessing when critical information needs to be shared with external stakeholders.
