Pastoral Care & Safeguarding Meeting Report

Meetings

Pastoral Care & Safeguarding Meeting

The Pastoral Care and Safeguarding Group met on 10th October 2013.

Present:  Revd Canon Anthony Ball (Chair), Janet Hewerdine, Pam Marson, Pam Newley.  No apologies

1.  Pam Newley (Safeguarding Officer) updated the Group on matters related to safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults.  Changes to the system meant that Disclosures from the DBS (formerly CRB) were now transferable.  Further work was needed to ascertain whether the parish could take advantage of this development and extend its list of those with disclosures to include those who had them through other employments.   The Rector will review the list of those holding disclosures (including date and training history) each year to ensure we complied with best practice guidelines.

2. A recommendation was made to the PCC that Joan Tick be trained as Pastoral Assistant.  This would ensure that she was commissioned for her valuable ministry at Lanehurst Gardens within the recently-established umbrella of the Pastoral Team.

3.  The success of the Afternoon Teas with Pastoral Assistants was noted – there having been two such events with 22 attending each. There have been favourable comments, those attending seeming to appreciate the fellowship of the occasions.  The teas are by invitation and any parishioner wanting to attend or nominate someone should contact a Pastoral Assistant or a member of the clergy team.  Consideration was given to changing the date to the 2nd Wednesday of the month from January.

4. Discussion on the practicalities of establishing a Bereavement Support Group continued.  We are in touch with St Catherine’s Hospice and Crawley URC.

5.   The Group agreed that its key objectives for 2014 would be to:

  1. To consolidate bereavement support
  2. Develop the Afternoon Teas (enhancing the ‘listening’ role of  Pastoral Assts)
  3. Improve mechanisms for identifying pastoral needs congregation members
  4. Extend understanding of the role of ‘Welcomers’ in the churches

It noted that it had a budget of £420 for its work.

6.         The Group also discussed developing an ‘resource pack’ for Pastoral Assistants with useful organisations and numbers, communication within the congregations, and Healing Services.

It will next meet on Thursday, 13th February 2014 .