Safeguarding Kit for Faith and Community Settings

Overview

Faith communities provide spiritual guidance, community, and support for families and children. Many run children's groups, youth programmes, religious classes, and community events. The trusted position of faith leaders and the close-knit nature of these communities can make safeguarding more challenging — concerns may be minimised, handled internally, or overlooked due to loyalty or deference to authority. This kit helps faith organisations embed safeguarding into their culture and practice.

Key Risks

• •The trusted authority of faith leaders creating an imbalance of power that can be exploited.
• •A culture of deference or loyalty discouraging disclosure or reporting of concerns.
• •One-to-one pastoral care or counselling sessions with children taking place without appropriate safeguards.
• •Community resistance to external involvement, leading to concerns being handled internally rather than reported to statutory authorities.
• •Religious education or worship settings where children are in the care of adults who may not have formal safeguarding training.

Policies

• •A safeguarding policy that reflects statutory guidance and is endorsed by the faith community's leadership, reviewed annually.
• •A policy on pastoral care and one-to-one meetings with children, requiring transparency, visibility, and parental awareness.
• •A safer recruitment policy for all roles involving children, including voluntary and informal roles, requiring DBS checks and references.

Adult Conduct Boundaries

• •One-to-one meetings between faith leaders and children should take place in visible, open settings with another adult aware of the meeting.
• •Physical contact with children — such as during prayer, blessing, or comfort — should be minimal, appropriate, and always with the child's consent.
• •Adults in positions of spiritual authority should not seek to form exclusive personal relationships with individual children.
• •Any form of physical discipline, exorcism, or spiritual intervention that could cause harm to a child is abuse and must be reported.

Communication Boundaries

• •Faith leaders and volunteers should not communicate privately with children via personal messaging apps or social media.
• •Parental consent and awareness should be obtained before any one-to-one pastoral conversations with a child.
• •Information shared by a child in a pastoral or confessional context that indicates risk of harm must be reported to the safeguarding lead — confidentiality does not override a child's safety.
• •Group communications about children's activities should go through official channels accessible to parents.

Image Guidance

• •Written parental consent is required before photographing or filming children at any faith community event or activity.
• •Images should not be shared on social media or websites without specific consent, and should not identify individual children by name.
• •Images of children participating in worship or religious activities should be taken respectfully and used only for agreed purposes.

Emergency Escalation

Safeguarding Checklist

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