Parish Safeguarding Officer Resources

Parish Safeguarding Handbook & Safer Environment and Activities

The Parish Safeguarding Handbook brings into place the safeguarding responsibilities for parishes as outlined in the House of Bishops Safeguarding Policy and Practice Guidance. It is supported by a range of model templates and good practice reference material, that can be found on the link to the Parish Safeguarding Handbook below.

Note – The training information (pages 16-17) in the Handbook was updated in August 2019. If you have a hard copy of the Handbook you can print the revised pages here.

Guidance on safer working practice, called Safer Environment and Activities, which provides highly practical advice for parishes, helping them to run their day-to-day activities as safely as possible, was published in November 2019 and can also be found on the Parish Safeguarding Handbook link below.

Follow the Parish Safeguarding Handbook link below for CofE policies, guidance and model templates.

Diocesan Guidance, forms and examples

On some occasions there is a need to support the national guidance with local guidance, e.g. to clarify local policy or respond to a parish query,  which should be read in conjunction with the Parish Safeguarding Handbook. The documents are stored at the bottom of this page or you can access them easily by clicking on the links below;

Guidance

• Parish Safeguarding – Diocesan Guidelines (version 5)
• Parish Safeguarding Handbook Summary
• Safeguarding information, Guidance & Support