Safeguarding Sunday

Australian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart commit themselves to Safeguarding and Child Protection

The Catholic Church in Australia marks Safeguarding Sunday (formerly Child Protection Sunday) on the second Sunday of September -- at the conclusion of National Child Protection Week. Safeguarding Sunday seeks to acknowledge the immense damage caused by the sexual abuse of children and adults at risk, including by priests, religious and lay people within Catholic contexts. It makes a commitment to practices and protocols that create and maintain safe environments for all people. It invites people to pray for those harmed by abuse directly and indirectly.

Our commitment to safeguarding:

• We commit to each share responsibility for creating an environment that is safe for all
• We commit to pray for our safeguarding lead(s) and those working with children and adults 
• We commit to respect the boundaries that are in place to protect others
• We commit to support those in our church who have been hurt or abused
• We commit to provide on-going safeguarding training for all our workers
• We commit to allow sufficient time and resources to make our recruitment of workers safer 
• We commit to maintaining an open culture where people are encouraged to share concerns 
• We commit to not take offence when challenged about our presence or behaviour

To demonstrate my commitment to safeguarding children I pledge to:

• ensure that children are visible, their voices heard and their needs, views and wishes

addressed

• recognise that some children may be more vulnerable to harm due to their age,

specific needs or home circumstances

• work in partnership with other agencies, always acting in the best interests of

children

• act without delay to protect children from harm and abuse
• provide early help before children’s needs escalate further
• apply the local ‘levels of need guidance’ to assess and re-evaluate children’s needs
• share information promptly to support a collective and holistic assessment of

children’s needs

• strengthen relationships with families, supporting them to build resilience by

adopting a solution focused approach

• attend all multi-agency meetings to ensure collective responsibility for achieving

positive outcomes for children in a timely way

• ensure agencies challenge each other so that actions are taken promptly, avoiding

professional drift

• follow local multi-agency procedures to escalate concerns until there is an

appropriate resolution

• participate in regular and effective supervision with my peers so that there is

strong oversight of decisions made and actions taken

• meet all mandatory training requirements, regularly updating my professional

knowledge whilst applying any learning to my practice and cascading to others