Off to some Safeguarding training today. A very necessary, if somewhat harrowing experience.
The church in recent years has been scared by reports of Priests and workers who have abused those put in their care. We have to hang our head in shame that we were part of an organisation that both failed to protect those in its care and then tried to cover up what was going on. Of course these things happened in a time when everyone tried to cover up this kind of thing – that, at least, is not exclusive to the church.
The church has a dilema. It has had a high proportion of abuse problems in its past. This is doubly bad because Christianity teaches that we should be caring for the abused and oppressed. However, it also has such a high number of problems because it has been the place where most of the work with children and vulnerable adults has taken place. When you are the one doing all the work it is no surprise that you will be the one who also has all the problems. The churches dilemma is this: do we continue with the work and risk more cases of abuse or do we simply stop all the work and appear to be squeaky clean?
My feeling is that we must do all we can to prevent abuse but still continue with the work. It wouldn’t be right to abandon our work of caring for those that most people don’t seem to be bothered about. Who is bothered about helping young people discover fullness of life and helping them become useful members of society? We have tended to leave this stuff up to churches and now they can’t do as much we want our schools to do it – when their job is really about education. I’m not sure that a school can successfully help young people in this way given the restrictions they face on what they can and can’t do or say. I for one am not prepared to abandon young people (or vulnerable adults) to fend for themselves from now on.
I have heard the question asked: who in our society, outside of school hours, knows the names of the young people who populate our streets, save perhaps the drug dealer?
Yes, the church must continue to work with young people and vulnerable adults and then we must do all we can to protect them in our care.