Hi, so most of you know me as Aisha. There are two things you should know about me. One is that I am impulsive and I impulsively volunteered to be the Safeguarding Officer for Cambridge Unitarians.
Shortly after volunteering, I discovered that every year there is an event called Safeguarding Sunday when thousands of churches, in November, run activities on the subject of keeping people safe and providing safe spaces for people to voice abuses that have happened to them within the church.
We are now in December. The other thing about me is I am often late.
Aside from my timing – I wondered how to use today.
I want to think about what is meant by safeguarding and what safeguarding might look like for us.
If we look to “Our Principles of Living”, number 4:
“Find Strength in Community – our local gathering can be a microcosm of the co-operative society we seek to build. Here, we support one another in our journeys, sharing our joys and sorrows as we work together towards a better world.”
In order to find strength in community, we need to feel safe. A key aspect of being safe is safeguarding. We cannot be sharing our joys and sorrows with people we do not feel safe with.
Safeguarding Sunday was set up to create a world where every child and adult can feel, and be, safe.
That means physically safe and emotionally safe. Safe from physical harm, sexual harm, financial harm, bullying, harassment, cuckooing (where someone has their home taken over by others), forced into illegal activities, intimidation. These are examples and not an exhaustive list.
A tricky aspect of talking about safeguarding or abuse can make people feel unsafe and uncomfortable. But we canNOT ignore safeguarding for fear of making people uncomfortable.
Safeguarding is uncomfortable. From being a youth worker, I have personally dealt with many safeguarding incidences and each one of them was uncomfortable. That is the nature of safeguarding. It is seeing or hearing about something that is dangerous or harmful and saying this needs to stop. People don’t tend to like that. It’s disruptive and in the wider world it can be dangerous. Because normally we are talking about imbalances of power. Where powerful people are abusing less powerful.
Power is a really interesting topic in itself.
- There is the power we have in society – the richest 1% hold a lot of power, police resources are directed to certain issues and away from others.
- In our communities, some people have positional power. Many church leaders who were guilty of horrific abuse, instead of being properly investigated, were allowed to move to a new location and continue abusing others.
- And personal power – a charismatic person is more often believed than an uncharismatic person. Within ourselves we may be physically strong which can mean others don’t pick a fight with us.
When we think about keeping people safe in the future, I think we are talking about how do we equalise power?
When I worked for a local organisation in my early 20s, my manager encouraged another member of staff to hold a lighter under a volunteer’s leg. They did not feel able to report the incident due to his position.
There are many examples where abuse was allowed to go unchecked because those with less power did not know who to go to and when they did go to the appropriate organisation, they were not listened to, or given the support necessary to allow their voice to be heard.
I am the safeguarding officer. I aim to listen to you and provide a safe space. And that gives me a certain amount of power and often respect in a community. If you were concerned by an action I did and wanted to make an allegation about me, would you feel able to do that? Who would you feel safe talking to?
Which brings me to our procedures. Procedures are good methods for equalising. And should a procedure fail, it can be improved. Looking at our procedures and making them publicly available is something that I am planning to do in the coming year.
I also think it is important to think about the extent of our remit. Who are we safeguarding? When I ran a youth club that was easy – anybody under the age of 25, who turned up at the club. I was there to listen, support, guide and take appropriate action.
So who are we safeguarding here? Is it anyone who attends the Sunday service? Is it anyone who turns up at the door from Cambridgeshire? What about the church minister, trustees and volunteers – how do we provide safeguarding for them?
Today’s talk raises more questions than answers. I think that’s a good place to start because I am new in this position. I would like to hear your thoughts, ideas and questions on the matter of Safeguarding within Cambridge Unitarians.