Our attention has been drawn to the new edition of the Church of England's Child Protection Policy Protecting All Gods Children
Whilst the policy provides a helpful statement of the Church of England's position in relation to child protection and contains some useful advice it also silent on some important matters. This includes the reality that some people are falsely accused of child abuse and may therefore need extra pastoral support.
The document starts off with a theological approach which assert that every human being has value and dignity which comes from God's creation and that they have a duty to value people and protect them for harm. It is completely silent on the matter of God command not to bear false witness.
The document from the Church of England [Ref 1, p46 (PDF51), Sec P3.4] that it asks applicants for posts involving working with children if they have ever had their children placed on the Register of Children at Risk. This comes embedded in a list of other questions, such as convictions, cautions, and allegations, or being under investigation. It goes on to say that the information supplied, including the register question, will be checked with the authorities.
The implication is that the C of E considers the initial child protection conference to be comparable to a court of law regarding the validity of allegations. Nothing could be further from the truth. Also the C of E seem to consider the CPC to be judging findings of fact resulting from careful investigation and testing of evidence. Finally it seems to assume that the parents are the ones considered to be suspected of abuse. In many instances this will not be the case. All this is totally misguided particularly as the process requires one to breach an undertaking of confidentiality.
To put it hypothetically, if some one applied for job as a crèche assistant at my local church, they would be asked to declare if any of their children had been on the at-risk register. In some instances a honest explanation might be such information is "confidential" and cannot be disclosed, which might be negatively impacting on their job prospects. However, if the person chose to violate their obligation to confidentiality, then they might have to state, accurately, that the reason for being on the register was not a result of any act of commission or omission on their part, as they were not a suspect.
This sloppy approach is all too common throughout the document and diminishes its value. What we are seeing is the erosion of legal and civil liberties and a worrying trend for the Church of England to uncritically accept that child protection investigators are in infallible.