ABUSERS may be getting into churches because safer recruitment
practices are not followed, new research warns.
The head of safeguarding at the Churches' Child Protection
Advisory Service, Justin Humphreys, presented his research at a
conference in Edinburgh this week.
"Far too often, churches are under the impression that all they
have to do to ascertain that somebody is safe to work . . . with
children or vulnerable adults is to carry out a disclosure check,"
he said. "Nothing could be further from the truth. . .
"All churches must devise a job description and person
specification, advertise each post, take and verify references and
any qualifications required, and conduct a robust interview. My
message is that a DBS [Disclosure and Barring Service] check, on
its own, is simply not sufficient to ensure children's safety,
because it means that abusers could, potentially, be slipping
through the net."
www.ccpas.co.uk
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