Published: 20 August 2020
Audits of Catholic dioceses and religious institutes have revealed a “consistent commitment of leaders and an emerging and strengthening child-safe culture”, according to Catholic Professional Standards Ltd.
Since its establishment in 2016, CPSL has developed and rolled out the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards, provided safeguarding capacity-building to Church entities through training, support, advice and guidance, and developed an audit framework to measure compliance with the Standards.
During that time, more than 1800 people have accessed training activities and 1200 people have attended briefings, conference presentations and informal development activities. Thirteen Church entities have participated in a CPSL audit of their practices against the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards and 10 audit reports – covering one archdiocese, three dioceses and six religious institutes – have been published on the CPSL website.
The information is contained in the CPSL Impact Report, released yesterday.
CPSL chief executive officer Sheree Limbrick said the audits conducted show some areas for improvement remain, but “we have also found areas where Church entities are consistently demonstrating strong levels of compliance, such as in the area of complaints management”.
“Given the well-justified past scrutiny towards the Church in this area, that Church entities are increasingly able to demonstrate that robust systems and procedures are now in place is a vital finding,” Ms Limbrick said.
FULL STORY
Safeguarding capacity building and audits making an impact (CPSL)
