Safeguarding

Safeguarding is a set of measures taken to protect the health, well-being, and human rights of individuals, which allow children, young people, and people with care and support need to live free from abuse, harm and neglect. Abuse is a form of maltreatment, and someone may abuse or neglect a child or adult by inflicting harm, or by failing to act to prevent harm. Children Act 1989 defines anyone under the age of 18 years as a child. The six principles of safeguarding are empowerment, prevention, proportionality, protection, partnership and accountability.

Every human being has a value and dignity which we as Catholics acknowledge as coming directly from God’s creation of all men and women in his own image and likeness. The call to safeguard the lives of others is the Vocation of all members of the Church. Christ our Lord expressed to his disciples the paramount importance of protecting and safeguarding his ‘little ones’. In order to develop the highest calibre regime of safeguarding within the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) was established in 2021 which provides a regulatory professional standard function to meet the needs of the ‘One Church’ going forward. Our Eparchy functions as a partner of CSSA, CSSA will have the authority to ensure that each partner organization is complying with the published standards such as:

Safeguarding is embedded in the Church body’s leadership, governance, ministry and culture,
Communicating the Church’s Safeguarding Message
Engaging with and caring for those who report having been harmed,
Effective Management of Allegations and Concerns
Management and Support of Subjects of Allegations and Concerns (respondents)
Robust Human Resource Management
Training , Support ,Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement for Safeguarding
ADDENDUM FOR THE SAFEGUARDING STRUCTURE
The Catholic Syro-Malabar Eparchy of Great Britain covers England, Wales and Scotland. In England and Wales, Eparchy is divided into 12 regions namely Birmingham, Bristol & Cardiff, Cambridge, Canterbury Leeds, Leicester,London, Manchester, Oxford, Preston, Scotland and Southampton. Under each region, there are parishes, missions and proposed missions and all regions are headed with regional safeguarding co-ordinators /counter signatories under whom there are parish/mission/proposed mission safeguarding representatives. The safeguarding structure of the Eparchy consists Board of Trustees, safeguarding sub-committee, safeguarding Co-ordinator, safeguarding officer, 12 regional safeguarding Co-ordinators and local safeguarding representatives from each CSMEGB parish/mission/proposed mission. The Eparchy of Great Britain follows the National Safeguarding policy provided by the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency; safeguarding in the Eparchy is overseen by the Safeguarding Trustee Sub-committee.

Safeguarding Sub-Committee Chair – Rev. Dr Antony Chundelikkat
Email: protosyncellus@csmegb.net                        Mob: 07478273948
Safeguarding Coordinator                 - Dr Shibu Velutheppilly
Email: safeguardingcoordinator@csmegb.org       Mob: 07542534221
Safeguarding Officer                              - Lisha Mathew
Email: safeguarding@csmegb.org                          Mob: 07724 353992

Bishops Office