Safeguarding

Long-gone are the days when churches and other volunteer organisations ran on trust alone. Sadly, the experience of both secular and religious groups has often been that they have attracted individuals whose desire was not to offer genuine volunteering help, but who wanted to operate in an environment where they could groom children and vulnerable adults, and then abuse them, whether sexually, emotionally, financially, or potentially many other ways. All too often, other volunteers or staff members were either duped by those abusers, or turned a blind eye to it because, in many other ways, the abuser(s) had made themselves invaluable to the organisation.

At Oakwood Chapel, we don't want to allow abusers of any kind to get a foothold. That means we all have a responsibility to be on the alert for any signs that one of our volunteers – or even simply a member of our congregation – is behaving irresponsibly with those who might be vulnerable. As part of that, we also maintain a formal safeguarding policy, which you can download here.

All those who work directly with young people or vulnerable adults, and those in the church who oversee their work, including the elders and the safeguarding coordinator, are DBS checked.