National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland - Implementation of Review Report Recommendations

An overview report by the NBSCCCI of the implementation of recommendations by those reviewed in the 7th tranche of Safeguarding Reviews, reported on in February 2015

In September 2014, the fieldwork began into reviews of safeguarding practice of 8 male religious congregations and 8 female religious congregations. The 8 male religious and 1 of the female religious were assessed against the Catholic Church’s 7 safeguarding standards.

The remaining 7 female religious, due to their limited ministry with children, aging profile and absence of allegations relating to sexual abuse of children were assessed against a different framework, proportionate to the degree of ministry they hold. The Terms of Reference for both sets of reviews were appended to the individual reports.

The review reports were placed in the public domain in February 2015.

As a follow up to the report, the National Board invited those with recommendations, to send in a progress report.

The Augustinians; The Passionists: The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (SSCC); The Discalced Carmelites (OCD); The Franciscan Friars (OFM); The Franciscan Brothers; The Servites (OSM); The Marist Fathers and The Dominican Sisters.

In the intervening months, each of these Religious Congregations and Orders have been actively putting in place new policies, procedures and amending their safeguarding practices to fulfil the requirements of the recommendations made in their review reports. Discussions have taken place with NBSCCCI and where requested advice offered to the Church Authority.

Current Situation:

Eight months after publication of the reports, The National Board has not conducted any re-review of practice of these Orders and Congregations. The information provided by each Church Authority reflects their efforts over the past months since the publication of their reports. Many of the Church Authorities have contacted the National Board for guidance on the implementation of their review recommendations. Others have organised training, delivered by the National Board and others have conducted reviews of their policies and guidance and redrafted these pending the introduction of a National Policy for the Catholic Church in 2016. Without doubt all Church Authorities have invested significant time and resources to ensuring that their recommendations have been completed or are well underway.

I am satisfied, that safeguarding children is a priority for these Orders and Congregations. Their submissions demonstrate their commitment to improving practice and responding to the recommendations, in the interests of further safeguarding children in the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Teresa Devlin

CEO

Details on each update report can be found at the following links:

Augustinians:

http://www.augustinians.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/NBSCCCI-OSA-Review-Feb-2015-Progress-Update-281015.pdf

Passionists:

http://passionists.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Update-on-Review-November-2015.pdf

Discalced Carmelites:

http://www.ocd.ie/images/Safeguarding/OCDAuditRecommendationsImplementation.pdf

Servites:

http://www.servitefriars.org/pdf/safeguarding-review.pdf

Franciscan Friars: