THE “atmosphere of blame and guilt” that has followed publication of the Makin Review is making a culture of fear that encourages cover-up, the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, warned this week.
He spoke of “real fear within the local church” amongst clergy and parish safeguarding officers (PSOs), who needed reassurance about their practice, and of the importance of making a “no-blame atmosphere, where we’re asking not who but why, where we’re all seeking to improve in an environment where we won’t be frolicked to dry.
“I regret this atmosphere of blame and guilt that has followed Makin and is being stirred up by all forms of people including a few of my colleagues, since it creates a culture of fear, and and a culture of fear encourages cover-up,” he said on Tuesday. “Whereas, for good safeguarding, you wish a no-blame culture.
“There is little doubt in any respect that clergy are really feeling under pressure, and lots of of them are in contact with our safeguarding team wanting to make sure they follow due process, wanting reassurance, just now very frightened on this area — and PSOs also.”
He spoke of meeting with a priest who had recently begun ministry in a parish that was “in a large number safeguarding-wise,” and was doing a “implausible job of turning it around”, but was struggling to search out a PSO. “He is feeling personally extremely vulnerable, and a terrific deal of what I needed to say to him was about attempting to reassure him, but he really is feeling that he can be in trouble, and be disciplined, because he can’t discover a PSO, since it is taking time to get on top of things with dashboards and hubs. There is an actual fear within the local church.”
The diocese of Blackburn held three listening sessions for clergy last week, in the sunshine of the Makin review. “I used to be really shocked by the strength of emotion,” Bishop North said. “Lots of sadness at letting down survivors, lots of disappointment at ‘Here we’re again’, lots of anger on the Church nationally, but then a terrific deal of fear about their very own practice. I just don’t think fear and guilt and blame fosters the suitable atmosphere for safeguarding; I feel it makes us a less secure Church.”
Actively covering up abuse should be a disciplinary matter, he said. But a distinction needs to be drawn between those that “refuse to alter or have actively covered up or have abused”, and those that had made a mistake.
“Where there are individuals who either make mistakes in process, or who don’t follow up properly, that’s educational, and in the event that they reside in fear of heavy disciplinary motion, they won’t admit to their problems,” he said. “We need an environment through which individuals are willing to return forward and ring the DSA [diocesan safeguarding adviser] and say ‘I feel I even have mucked this up’ and the DSA can do some education work.”
Speaking on Sunday on Radio 4 this week, the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, said that “good work” was being done on safeguarding at parish level. “It distresses me that parish safeguarding teams’ morale is totally shot to pieces by this.”
On the suggestion, set out within the Jay review, for safeguarding to be transferred to independent bodies (News, 23 February), Bishop North said that, having once argued for “complete independence”, he remained convinced of the necessity for “independence of scrutiny”. One of the things he heard usually from survivors was that it was “a nightmare attempting to make a criticism to a body that has abused you”. But, drawing on conversations with DSAs, he had reservations about independence of operation: “I feel the chance is that we see ourselves as outsourcing our own safeguarding responsibility.”
The Jay review, published in February, reported hearing from many PSOs that “their role felt onerous and that they were ill-equipped to administer the role”. One cause was “the big selection of duties they were expected to perform”.
On Tuesday, Bishop North said that he had seen up to now ten years “enormous changes across the culture that individuals try to set and their understanding of safeguarding culture versus process”, which he attributed to a latest generation of clergy. “They are bringing positive attitudes towards safeguarding.” The feedback he had heard from clergy was that dashboards and hubs were “difficult to establish”, but, “once you’re up and running, they make things much easier and far more reassuring”.
He recognised, nevertheless, the challenge of recruiting PSOs in some areas, and said that dioceses needed to be a part of the answer. It may be vital to pay people to act as PSOs for a spread of urban parishes, he said.
On Tuesday, it was announced that the Survivors Voices group was launching an independent publishing arm, Survivors Voices Press, to “amplify the voice of survivors, promote understanding of trauma, and encourage ally-ship with abuse survivors”.
The group’s co-founder, Jane Chevous, said: “There’s lots of concern about legal issues in the event you name your abuser, and there’s a certain area of interest version of survivor stories that is suitable, the ‘shock horror’ or ‘tragic but brave’ stories. But anything, that perhaps tries to be more holistic, shouldn’t be responded to favourably, and positively people have had their publications refused since it’s about abuse.”
The first in a series of publications by survivor authors can be launched tomorrow. They are: The Reality of Rape by Jenny Cooke and Poppy in Pieces by Sue Atkinson.
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