Welcome to the Diocese of Willochra

CHILD SAFETY

The Diocese is conducting special training sessions between now and Easter 2009

regarding Child Safety. Mr Bruce Thorpe has been trained to provide what has previously been called Mandatory Reporting. The new correct title for this work is “Understanding Child Safe Environments & Reporting Child Abuse & Neglect”. At its last meeting, the Diocesan Council agreed to a policy that every Licensed Lay Minister, as well as every Cleric in the Diocese should undergo this training and Bishop Garry has also asked all the members of the Community of Saint Barnabas and Saint Cecilia to undergo this training. It takes eight hours and the expectation is that by Easter 2009 every Licensed Lay Minister in the Diocese, every member of the Religious Community and every Priest and Deacon will have an up-to-date certificate confirming that they understand Child Safe Environments and Reporting Child Neglect and Abuse. Congregations can probably best organize this work and you need to contact Bruce Thorpe at his home in Auburn on (08) 8849 2318 to find a time when he might come to your Congregation/Parish/District for training. It is quite OK to advertise this training widely, school teachers, sports coaches, doctors, dentists and any others who are involved in close contact with young people are required by law to have undergone this training and Bruce’s training is certified around Australia as being satisfactory for the fulfilment of legislative provisions. The cost, at this stage, will be $35:00 per person which is considerably less than any other Child Safety Training available. The minimum number of people to form a training group is eight and this is an absolute lower number, so it may be necessary for your Licensed Lay Minister to combine with those of a nearby congregation to enable there to be sufficient people as well as energy for the training to continue. This could be an imposition, but it is important that we all recognize the necessity for clarity about child safety and security in our Church environment and so this will have to be part of every Licensed Lay Ministers’ Training.

Dates so far booked for Bruce Thorpe to conduct training around the Dioceses