Safety

The Anglican Church is committed to helping keep our children and young people, as well as their leaders safe. We want to foster best practice policy at all levels of ministry.  It is our responsibility and greatest joy to foster church communities that are safe, welcoming and inclusive. We honour and respect all members of the body of Christ, and are called to ensure that our churches are safe for all. 

Handle with Care

In 2018, we put together our recommended national safety policy for the Anglican Dioceses of New Zealand. This document has been adopted by several dioceses, as a resource for better practice in churches and organisations. 
Handle with Care Policy (pdf)
Handle with Care Policy - text only (word doc)

Child Protection in the Anglican Dioceses of NZ

Each Anglican Diocese is responsible for overseeing the child protection and safety training of all their leaders, and for managing their own Safeguarding and Child Protection Policy.

For more information, contact your local diocese:
 Please get in touch if you have any questions, and we can put you in contact with your local safety coordinator.

Safety Checks + Police Vetting

SafeHere aims to improve the safety of children and young people in a range of organisations across Australia and New Zealand. The Anglican Dioceses encourage parishes to consider using a safety management programme, one of which is SafeHere. SafeHere includes both printed and online resources to help you manage safety in your parish or ministry unit for children, young people and vulnerable adults. SafeHere works at a parish level and a Diocesan level to store information about staff, volunteers, police vetting, risk management forms for programmes etc. For more information on SafeHere, see here

What is the Children's Act?

The Children's Act 2014, which came into force in July 2016, requires organisations to ensure that those working with children understand the nature of abuse and neglect. 

All churches must now also develop policy for:
  • Defining and Identifying Abuse and Neglect
  • Dealing with Disclosures of Abuse
  • Recording, Reporting and Responding to Suspected Abuse
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Each diocese is responsible for ensuring safe practice when working with children, young people and vulnerable adults.  All (paid and volunteer) ministry personnel must have a thorough understanding of best practice their diocesan safety policy. Safety training for all leaders in general safety, boundaries, protection and abuse is required, along with a current police check.  All checks and training is to be repeated every three years. 

Oranga Tamariki

Oranga Tamariki is the Ministry for Children in New Zealand. 

​They are dedicated to supporting any child in New Zealand whose wellbeing is at significant risk of harm now, or in the future. We also work with young people who may have offended, or are likely to offend. Their belief is that in the right environment, with the right people surrounding and nurturing them, any child can, and should flourish.
Oranga Tamariki have some resources for working with children, and a wealth of information on their website. 

Team Training resources

Your team of leaders are such an important part of our ministries, as they ensure that our churches are the safest place for all of our children. It is important to ensure that they have the best training to help support a safe and welcoming programme, and there are a range of opportunities around New Zealand to help you with this. 
Crossroads Kids' Club Training have uploaded a variety of short animated safety videos that can be helpful refreshers on a few safety issues. 

Video conferencing
​with young people
Safety guidelines

Digital Safety

Privacy Act 2020

The way we live our lives has changed substantially since the Privacy Act came into place in 1993. The amendments made this year reflect a society that shares and collects digital data, and you will need to check how this act affects you and your church/organisation. The new Act specifically requires businesses and organisations that are collecting personal information from children or young people to consider whether the way they collect the information is fair in the circumstances. It may not be fair to collect information from children in the same manner as you would from an adult. More information at https://privacy.org.nz/privacy-act-2020/campaign/
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