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The model railway exhibition at our church Christmas Market was a great success. Feedback from customers confirmed it was one of the key attractions appealing to families with children, encouraging them to come to the Market. The church model railway group, who stage the exhibition annually, started about 15 years ago as an offshoot of the youth club, led by an enthusiastic young member. The group then attracted some adult church members with an interest in modelling and trains in general. It immediately became clear that there would be a mixture of ages in the group and for me, at that time one of the youth club leaders, this posed a safeguarding dilemma, which if I’m honest never got properly resolved in terms of policy and practice before the younger ones either left for university or drifted away. Whilst a mixed age group it was led by the young people themselves with the adults rather peripheral, with one of them, me, feeling obliged to be there to supervise what was going on from a non-technical perspective. But now the group is solely composed of a small group of adult men and has been for 6 or 7 years or more. The issue here though is to be clear about the safeguarding arrangements that need to be put in place when a mixed age interest group develops whether its focus is drama, music, sport or trains. The members will generally be equal in terms of their participation and engagement and may well work closely together on projects. So how to ensure that the group is a safe space is a responsibility that lies with the leadership. Churches who sponsor such groups should ask themselves if adequate supervision and chaperoning is in place. Is there a code of conduct for adults to sign? Are younger members made aware of how to keep themselves safe and whom they might approach if concerned about the behaviour of an adult member? Are there rules about out of group communication? Are parents clear about the arrangements and have they supplied consent? In fairness, well-established organisations that cater for children and adults engaging in the same activity are very likely to have appropriate safeguarding measures in place to manage these relationships and the task of the church will be simply to satisfy itself that the arrangements are adequate. The challenge will come when groups in the church develop quickly or on an ad hoc basis in response to a new and exciting project, such as a one off dramatic production or musical concert. Church safeguarding officers should be alert to such plans and ensure the movers and shakers have thought through carefully how the new opportunities will be planned and managed safely for all age groups. The coming Christmas period is a great time for inter-generational activities, so let’s make sure they pass off successfully and safely.

To see an amazing selection of medieval manuscripts head to the British Library's exhibition entitled 'Anglo- Saxon Kingdoms; Art, Word and War'. It's on until February 19th so still plenty of time to catch it. Featuring the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Domesday Book and various of Bede's ecclesiastical histories among a large selection of richly decorated manuscripts, it's a remarkable collection of texts which tell the story of the years 700-1080 along with bibles, key religious texts and monastic guides. This was the era when English kings and scholars began to recognise the need to write things down for the benefit of both the times they lived in and the future. If you visit, be prepared for cathedral like solemnity as people read with care what's written about each item. I think you will probably see where this blogpost is going! The Anglo-Saxons saw the advantage of writing things down, telling stories about who, what, when, how and why. The Domesday book is quite precise and geographic and spells out who owned what land and on what basis. So if the Anglo-Saxons got it and took time to write down what they saw and understood about their world, then our task as safeguarders is equally clear. It's worth repeating that accurate and timely record keeping is the basis for good governance in safeguarding. Knowing who is a volunteer and office holder, that they were recruited safely and that they have completed the necessary training is the bedrock of sound preventive practice. Likewise, when we have a concern brought to our attention, its equally important to keep an accurate record of the facts of the matter - who was involved, when was it, what actually happened and crucially what's going to happen next. There is guidance on the Connexional Safeguarding website that will help you to do this to a good standard. Keeping the records safe and secure, but also accessible, is also an important aspect of this process. These Anglo-Saxon manuscripts have been kept safe in some cases for over 1,300 years, so we too need to think with care about how and where we preserve our records, and for how long. Whether Bede or Asser, King Alfred's biographer, intended that their work should last for a millennium is a moot point, but others since recognised their value, kept them safe and so they are now available for us to see and study. We would do well to think about our safeguarding records being good enough to stand the test of time. We may never know when we may need to reference them in the future.

This week’s offering started off as a foray into the world of the DBS Update service. A rare journey I know, but one I was reminded of at our Circuit Leadership Team meeting on Monday. A colleague asked about Methodist policy concerning the use of the update service, and I commented that for various reasons I had made two parallel applications for myself in recent days, through different providers. So I felt that perhaps I now needed to take my own advice, given the service’s simplicity, to avoid this duplication of effort. But DBS musings have been overtaken by the tragic news of several more stabbings of young people in London over the last week, and I echo the Monday Evening Standard’s front page question, ’When will it end?’ Some of our London circuits are in the heart of communities deeply traumatised about the alarming frequency of what’s been going on throughout the year, and I’ve written earlier about the need to apply our safeguarding knowledge and experience where we can to support our local churches. This is a big topic, and recent calls have been to adopt a public health approach to prevention. This means an all systems focus with dovetailing contributions from a wide range of statutory and voluntary sector partners, and the Methodist Church in London, individually or collectively with other faith organisations, should play its part. It was therefore heartening to hear from the Church’s Equality and Diversity Officer speaking at the DSO day yesterday, as he called upon us to use our expertise and get involved in local schemes that can address this serious issue. Serious youth violence is one aspect of a new phenomenon called ‘contextual safeguarding’ which aims to describe the significant harm that young people can both cause and experience through interactions rooted in gang culture, on line peer to peer abuse, county lines drug distribution and sexual exploitation. The government’s most recent child safeguarding guidance, ‘Working Together’, and published in September 2018 identifies contextual safeguarding for the first time amongst the more familiar lists of abuse types. The practical challenge for the Connexional Safeguarding Team, DSO’s and their District Safeguarding Groups will be how to find the time, energy and resources to commit to this important work. So the need for a Connexional and key Districts task group to scope out a meaningful strategic response, what it might look like and what it will need to be effective is well signalled. As Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, suggested, we are in this for the long haul.

If you’ve ever trained with me you may recall a story I sometimes tell about my mum and her best friend. It’s the tale of something not much talked about and involved the mysterious and sudden disappearance from our church of the leader of the junior section of the Boys’ Brigade, then known as the Life Boys, almost 60 years ago. My inquiries of both my mum and her best friend elicited snorts of disapproval but nothing more. No details and no desire to share. This summer our church started a history project to catalogue all our archives and begin to think about a small permanent display of a number of key objects or documents. Fascinating work, taking a couple of days to complete the first stage of getting everything out of musty cupboards and labelling it. Hand written Quarterly Meeting and Sunday School staff meeting minute books told a fascinating 1950s story of an era of a four department, multiple class Sunday school and buoyant youth organisations. Of how the Girls Life Brigade, as it was known then, was preparing for a possible influx of girls from the Caribbean, and how the Boys’ Brigade band practice was causing neighbours to complain about the bugles. (Local colleagues may detect some current resonance here.) So suddenly there it was in one minute book we looked through. In only four words, ‘Mr A has resigned’. No more information was supplied, no reasons provided, no vote of thanks for all his hard work. To be honest I don’t know if the person whose name was included in full was the person about whom there was a tale not to tell but the lack of detail perhaps spoke volumes when compared to more effusive entries elsewhere. The Past Cases Review provided a focused opportunity to unearth more about what we thought we might know about something harmful, and to give a concrete shape to matters that in some ways were either a known part of the local church story or a folk myth that persisted over time. But that doesn’t stop us continuing now to make sense of our past to help protect people from abuse in the future. Your church archives might just be the place to start.

So again we have learnt about a series of convictions for aspects of child sexual exploitation, and again we are reminded that although this was in Huddersfield this time, the same patterns of behaviour can be seen all over the country. The impact of the abuse suffered by the teenage girls was described graphically in a number of weekend papers and so there will be similar stories in most if not all of our communities. What can churches do to prevent and spot abuse before its takes firm hold and then as necessary help to restore individuals to live without fear? One thing is clear – it’s a big challenge and we can’t do it all on our own. Local authorities, health services and the police will work together, and with partner agencies, to develop local prevention strategies that in part rely on empowering young people to resist getting swept up in a series of circumstances they cannot escape from. So given our ambition to enable young people to live fulfilled lives, our church youth work offer becomes part of the armoury of community resources that can be deployed, and it will be more effective if local safeguarders become involved in the planning. Our local church and circuit safeguarding officers can bring knowledge and expertise that can match the direct engagement skills of our youth workers. As this column has identified before, our outward facing churches are also well placed to observe what is happening on our streets and in our local communities, gather the pieces of the jigsaw together and bring what it reveals to the attention of the authorities. In the past though individuals and communities have tried to tell their stories and have sometimes been pushed back for a number of reasons. If this happens in your church or community then please do let your District Safeguarding Officer know, as with their connections they may well be able to push your concerns up the local agenda. This approach applies equally to serious youth violence and yesterday I visited a church in NE London that is opposite the site of a fatal shooting that took place earlier this year. The minister spoke about how youth workers from the church were aiming to support young people affected by this and advise on how they can keep themselves safe. But it’s too important to be left just to youth workers; a whole church response, grounded in prayer and the wise sharing of our talents is what’s required.

One of the regular Westminster underground station buskers was singing 'How Great Thou Art' as I hurried along one of the subways under Whitehall this morning. He normally plays reggae tunes on his battered guitar, but this hymn sung with echoing gusto gave me quite a tingle and I started singing along. Well until I checked if no-one was listening or staring at this this strange man that was me! This last weekend saw us in Graz, in Austria. It's the second biggest city after Vienna and a bit of a cultural hotspot. With glorious weather it was a shame to be inside on occasions, but one gallery we visited had a major exhibition featuring art from the Democratic Republic of Congo. It contained an impressive number of modern paintings that depicted scenes from everyday life with all its trials and tribulations, as well its joys and celebrations. Vibrant primary colours made a great impression and the setting was made complete with music from Congolese musicians such as Papa Wemba who founded the Society of Ambience-makers and Elegant People (SAPE) . This was a 1990's group of smartly, if garishly, attired young men who emerged from the sometime squalor of Kinshasa to parade their threads and adopt a cultured lifestyle. Check out the Congolese Rumba music that will defy anyone to stay still for long! The exhibition also told a darker story of the Congo's colonial oppression and the barbarity of the Belgian King Leopold's private fiefdom there in the early years of the 20th century, as well as the civil war that erupted at the start of independence in 1960. The story concluded with the 30 year rule of President Mobutu who reportedly looted the wealth produced by the country's precious metals and two more civil wars in the early years of this century. Its a tragic history. So the busker singing 'How Great Thou Art' can sound rather bitter sweet when you juxtapose it against the background of a nation that that offers so much but has been and continues to be abused by both internal and external forces. But many of the pictures revealed a deeper truth about the power of community, care, ambition and hope. Of people getting on with their lives in the face of adversity, and wherever there is courage and resilience, there is hope for a great future. Loving the new Dr Who as well, which also promises a great future. Who would have thought that one of the new assistants would be a middle aged man called Graham (without the 'e' though)! And I think I understand more about whats going on than in previous series. With the Sheffield backdrop and some real moments of drama and meaningful dialogue, the first episode was almost emotional. Enjoy.

The other night, my wife and I went to a house concert. If you are wondering what that is, it’s a gathering of 25-30 people in someone’s (large) front room, who are all there to listen to a singer or small band. You have to have the right connections to get a band whose next local gig is headlining at a 2,000 capacity venue in West London to play in your lounge. The organisers have just that since they have been arranging such gigs almost monthly for the past five or six years. Crucially you also have to be on the e mail list that gets the concert details. In exchange for a tenner and a bottle of wine we enjoyed an hour and a half of glorious folk-Americana music from a four piece band, a mid-point cup of soup and a hunk of homemade bread. In the convivial pre-concert and interval chatter there is the usual checking up on how things are going, and what you are up to just now. It’s that moment when you reveal (again) what you do for a living and as you do, perhaps you try to anticipate the response. Is this going to be the polite interest and move on, the opportunity to share a story, or the political correctness gone mad version? You never know until you open your mouth. On this occasion, and probably because the gathering included a number of folk who help to run a youth arts charity, the couple of people we spoke with really got the agenda, so for me it was a safe space in which to talk briefly about the job without getting drawn into an argument about the principles and purposes of safeguarding activity. But one question often comes up and it did again on this occasion. It’s the one about the proportion of false allegations, and for this enquirer, he had a particular and current interest in the light of the American Supreme Court hearings about Brett Kavanaugh. My usual response is to quote the research evidence that is set out in the Creating Safer Space training material that suggests a very small single figure proportion. But the events across the Atlantic, and how they have played out, probably require us to develop a more sophisticated and nuanced reflection that enables us to deliver a confident response when we are challenged about what we do and believe in.

The readings at my church on Sunday were about numbers, with one being drawn appropriately form the book of Numbers. The 70 chosen by Moses, the 72 sent out by Jesus and we had a passing reference to the seven deacons of the early church. A lot of mathematics to take in on a Sunday morning, but the message was clear: it’s about sharing the tasks, identifying roles and developing a team spirit. However much we sometimes try we can’t do it all by ourselves and it’s OK to seek help. Readers of this blog will spot a recurring theme here – safeguarding is a big team effort and not the technical or administrative preserve of a solitary person. We may not need the precisely defined high numbers prescribed by Moses and Jesus, but the team approach really does work best. The early church had it right when it started to identify the additional roles that needed to be fulfilled if the pastoral needs of the young church’s members were to be properly met. Some of us of a certain age may recall getting ‘painting by numbers’ sets for Christmas or birthdays. If you painted with care, keeping to the printed lines of the picture boards provided and as prescribed by the chart that told you which numbered colour to paint where, you could produce a passable piece of artwork that you could offer back to your aunt and uncle. But there was no room for any ambiguity, no scope for shading or nuance and blurring only happened when you made a calamitous mistake. So although doing it by the book and following instructions worked well, you could tell it was a static piece that perhaps lacked flourish. The 70, 72 and 7 had their instructions and no doubt set about their allotted tasks with varying degrees of skill and enthusiasm. The 72 went out two by two so there was no doubt a chance to bounce ideas off one another as they walked, agreeing who might be best placed to do which bit of the job. No doubt the 7 deacons met to decide who should do what, how to organise the distribution of food to widows and meet the other pastoral needs they had identified. So although you can do safeguarding well by painting the numbers and having exemplary records, doing it as a team with other colleagues who can offer practical advice and guidance and reflect with care on how to make policies come alive in their intention is a good rounded way of meeting the church’s overall expectations.

The death of a young student in Worcester late last week showed once again the fragility of life, and how a life of ambition, aspiration and achievement can be cruelly cut short. In his first week at university and just 18, it all seems so very tragic for all concerned. We don’t yet know what happened in the early hours of the day he went missing, but it’s easy to imagine the anxieties that will have been stirred in the hearts of many parents whose newly adult child has just left home to study. When children go to their first post GCSE Reading festival or the after A Level Newquay surf party, or start the gap year backpack, their parents no doubt feel acutely the tension of being proud of their child’s striving for independence whilst at the same remaining highly concerned about what might happen or go wrong. For the first time they are striking out without the full safety net of organisational accountability, of risk assessments, safe recruitment of leaders, contingency planning and emergency contact information. There is no one in a position of trust or authority to supervise or look out for them. You hope that sensible advice and years of modelling what you hope has been a good example of how to look after yourself will have the desired impact. The safeguarding message to local churches about a rigorous approach to planning events for children is very clear, and we are getting much better at thinking about how best to support vulnerable adults in our communities. National church events targeted at young people, such as 3Generate also have comprehensive safeguarding policies and procedures in place. Even secular festival organisers recognise they have a wider duty of care to all their customers, and universities will provide copious amounts of advice and guidance to students about how to keep safe. None of these approaches can ever guarantee 100% safety and probably cannot legislate for a spur of the moment decision by an individual young person or the sudden wilful behaviour of others outside the event or organisation affecting the careful preparations that have been made. Young people over 18 have capacity to make unwise decisions for themselves. They may not be illegal, but the consequences of making an ill-judged decision can be lifelong or in the worst case life-limiting. Young adults in our churches may be modest in number but it’s maybe a good time to apply our safeguarding thinking to their wider life experience. Or does that sound simply like adult nagging and more bureaucracy?

At a recent national safeguarding conference, a speaker blithely announced that we, as safeguarders, would never be the most popular persons in our organisation. But in a call to arms he then encouraged us not to duck the issues, as the organisation absolutely needs us to be right, this time and every time. Whilst being right all the time is a position we might aspire to, the reality might be a little different, and besides, being an unpopular person in our church, is a lonely place to be. Church politics can be as poisonous as the manoeuvring of secular organisations and we don’t come to worship to be cast into the wilderness. We know that emotional blocks can stop us seeing what is going on right in front of us, if we don’t want or, crucially in safeguarding, can’t bear to know. Jimmy Saville was hiding in the plain sight of people who either believed the things they saw were not really happening, or when they did speak up were not believed. For some, there is almost a natural instinct to cover things up, often motivated by a mistaken sense of wanting to make it better for everyone involved by doing so. So how do we overcome this paradox of our instinct to diffuse responsibility and walk on by and our church’s expectation of reporting and confronting the difficult issues head on. How do we overcome this sense of being as welcome to Macbeth as Banquo’s ghost? For safeguarders at a church and circuit level, who from time to time recognise the stifled groans of a weary meeting when the agenda item comes up, or find themselves in a church challenged by a view about forgiveness and repentance arising from an earlier concern that’s at variance with ‘respectful uncertainty’, one answer is an alliance. Seeking out likeminded people who get the agenda, who care passionately about their church being safe for their children, grandchildren and themselves in old age, who have some basic insight into the theology of safeguarding and what it means in practice, can be a helpful means of confirming you aren’t alone. Use them as a reference group to think things through weigh up options, plan how to get your message across and be there for you when others raise their eyebrows yet again. Make it a church group like Knit and Natter or a breakfast fellowship. Coffee, cake and a conversation about safe space for all and making it less about ‘thou shalt’ and more about ‘why don’t we’ might just mean that your church approval rating goes sky-high!

And so here we are after a glorious summer, and the start of the countdown to Christmas. As our church year starts again it’s another reminder of how we are hard wired from our time of starting school to think of September as a time for a fresh start, with new challenges and opportunities ahead. I now know that this blog is read outside London, so apologies to some readers that this week’s offering has something of a metropolitan focus about it. At the start of the autumn term, I’d like to draw attention to the circuit based Advanced Level training course programme we have just launched and you can find details of the first courses on the training pages of the website. Also that there is a workshop on safeguarding at London District Synod this week, where I’ll be reminding trustees and church leaders of their responsibility to hold their churches and circuits to account in respect of promoting good safeguarding practice. Standby, too, for details of the audit programme we plan to launch a little later in the autumn. Making a fresh start today is Martha Yankey who has just joined the District team and will be providing administrative support to me as the DSO. Welcome Martha! You will begin to see her name at the bottom of emails about the Advanced Level training courses in particular. So if you are a local church or circuit safeguarder, can you spot a chance to make a fresh start, to think again with renewed optimism about an issue that’s been perplexing you? Will the crisper mornings and vibrant autumn colours give you an energy boost, or will the dead leaves and shorter days suppress those ambitions? Last week’s blog also had a passing weather focus, and as my family might tell you I maintain a close watch (they might also say an obsession) on climatic matters as I’m convinced that the weather affects our moods as well as from time to time our travel plans. I mainly look forward in the autumn to not wearing a hat to keep the sun off where I’m challenged by a lack of follicles. So at least my head feels fresher on the outside. Enjoy September as a time to start over.

The incessant rain stopped just as Pussy Riot took to the stage at a sodden Greenbelt late on Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon. An eagerly anticipated high point of the weekend arts and faith festival, and of course the moment when as a member of the Safeguarding Team I was called away. I returned to the main stage an hour or so later just in time to hear Pussy Riot tell us what a great audience we had been. C'est la vie! Evidently their heady brew of punk and politics laced with parentally advisable lyrics went down well with the anorak clad crowd. Then it rained later and I started to harbour thoughts about my car getting stuck late at night in a muddy field, but all was well as I slipped on the gravel track and was away. Talking about the weather is quintessentially British, and sharing your thoughts about what you and others are experiencing is always a good icebreaker.  We have had a lot of weather to discuss this year from snow in March to scorching summer temperatures, and as we settle into a pleasant and relatively settled late summer period - at least in London - we can perhaps breathe a sigh of relief. Equally we may be less likely to talk to a stranger as we will have no shared context of weather related adversity. But there's a lesson here about being prepared to listen and respond in the most unlikely situations, when everyone else is having great fun, yet when something, often quite innocuously, has touched someone in an unexpected way. Experience suggests it doesn't matter whether it's rain or shine - it's maybe about just being in a place where it seems safe to talk to strangers. In other cases it's about taking responsibility for spotting something that doesn't seem quite right, telling someone about it and considering whether an intervention is required or not. So next time it's raining on your parade, your anorak is soaked through and your boots are caked in mud, just keep a lookout for the person who is not simply interested in keeping dry. Oh, and for regular readers, the Selhurst Park Safeguarding Steward has a white hi-vis waistcoat this season. And he wears a white shirt and tie. Promotion or higher status for safeguarding? We shall see!