Mary Immaculate Church, Waverley

4

Mary Immaculate Church

St Charles Borromeo Parish, Waverley

Safeguarding

Safeguarding

Commitment Statement

The emotional, physical and spiritual safety, well-being and dignity of children is an integral part of the teachings and values of the Catholic Church. The Archdiocese and the Parish of St Charles Borromeo are wholly committed to ensuring the safety, well-being and dignity of all children, and acknowledges its important legal, moral and spiritual responsibility to create a safe and nurturing environment for those children. The community has very clear expectations in matters relating to child protection and expects children will be protected from all forms of harm including sexual, physical and psychological harm, ill treatment and neglect.

The Archdiocese and St Charles Borromeo support these expectations and strive to promote the safety and protection of children and other vulnerable persons in their care.

Key Principles

  • The victims of sexual abuse are our first priority
  • Preventing abuse and protecting people
  • Sexual abuse is a crime which must be reported to police
  • No protection of abusers and no cover-ups.

Reporting Abuse

Child abuse is a criminal offence and the police are the appropriate authority to handle criminal investigations.

Sexual abuse has no place in the Church. The law requires serious crimes to be reported to the police and the policy of the Archdiocese is to report all allegations of sexual abuse to the police.

Police: If you have a complaint you can contact the NSW Police Child Protection and Sex Crimes Squad through your local police station or Crime Stoppers NSW on 1800 333 000. For all urgent matters regarding a child at imminent risk of significant harm please phone the Child Protection Helpline on 132 111 or 000.

More information can be found at www.police.nsw.gov.au or www.pcycnsw.org

The Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney has a Safeguarding and Ministerial Integrity Office. Their email ddress is: [email protected]



Parish Safeguarding Support Officer

What is a PSSO?

A PSSO supports and assists the Parish Priest in fulfilling his role and responsibilities set out in the Archdiocese’s safeguarding and child protection policies and protocols.

The PSSO will assist with making our parish compliant and working with our volunteers and parishioners in providing a greater understanding of safeguarding and what that means for all in our parish community.

What is Safeguarding and its role? 

The role of the Safeguarding is to raise awareness regarding our collective responsibility to protect the safety, well-being and dignity of children, young people and vulnerable adults within the Archdiocese of Sydney.

The Safeguarding & Ministerial Integrity Office works with PSSO so parishes of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney (CAS) become aware & compliant with NSW legislation. The Child Protection Legislation Amendment Act 2014, which was passed in NSW Parliament on 26 March 2014, changes the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. These changes are in effect and parishes need to comply.

Why does the Parish need a PSSO?

Next year the Catholic Professional Standards Limited (CPSL) will be auditing parishes and church entities throughout Australia. Audits can incur fines for the parish and CPSL will release public reports on each of the dioceses, religious institutes and other Catholic organisations it audits. These reports will indicate whether the leadership of that Church body has ensured that the Catholic Professionals Standards Limited are being met. CPSL can and will publish audit reports on their website which will indicate whether a particular Church Authority has failed an audit.

Interested in becoming our PSSO? Contact the Parish Office or Fr Bernie on (02) 9369 9399.