One of the questions we are asked most frequently is how to deal with church officers who are reluctant to take part in safeguarding training. Firstly, it is important to try to understand why someone is feeling this way. These are some of the common reasons and my suggestions for how to combat them:
- I don’t have the time: Basic Awareness, Foundations and Raising Awareness of Domestic Abuse are all completed online, in your own time, with the ability to take breaks and continue later
- I have accessibility needs: The online courses have been modified to make them more accessible for people with a range of needs. Given notice, we are also able to adapt the Leadership and PtO Pathways. The National Safeguarding Team are currently looking into providing translated versions for languages other than English, if this is something you feel would be useful, please complete this survey: Translating online training)
- I have safeguarding training at work, why do I need to do it again?: Every context is different and therefore safeguarding training is different in every context. If you have a good knowledge of safeguarding already, you are likely to be able to get through the material quite quickly.
- It is not relevant to me/we don’t have any safeguarding needs in our church: Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and a safeguarding issue can happen anywhere. All church officers are required to undertake training in order to make our churches as safe as possible for everyone.
- Safeguarding is just a bureaucratic exercise: Throughout the Bible we are called to protect and care for the vulnerable and “speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable.” Keeping ourselves and others safe is part of what it means to be a Christian.
- The training will bring back bad memories for me: This is trickier to deal with, because it may not be expressed in so many words. We understand that people who are survivors of abuse may be concerned about the content of the training. We are able, however, to make adjustments to the content and/or the delivery of the course if we know in advance. We will treat any such disclosures confidentially.
- I am not good with computers: The most complicated bit of the training is getting on in the first place. If someone can assist with that, the rest of the training is not really any more complicated than sending an email. We do run some face-to-face sessions, and can provide materials to facilitate PSOs delivering the online modules themselves, if they feel able to do this.
Safeguarding training at the appropriate level is not a choice, it is a requirement. Wherever possible we should be encouraging people to access this, using the carrot rather than the stick. However, if you are running into resistance that appears insurmountable, feel free to contact one of us for a bit of support or guidance.