Legislation and guidance
National safeguarding and child protection legislation and guidance
Legislation and guidance across the UK highlights the responsibility of faith groups to keep children safe and report concerns.
> Learn more about safeguarding and child protection legislation and guidance across the UK
Guidance from faith groups
There is also guidance from some faith groups and organisations. This is designed to support followers of specific faiths in implementing and maintaining safeguarding and child protection arrangements.
Although this guidance is specific to certain faiths and/or nations, best practice can be used by other faiths to improve their organisation’s child protection arrangements.
The Church of England has a National Safeguarding Team, which has created a Parish safeguarding handbook (PDF) (House of Bishops of the Church of England, 2018a; 2018b).
The Church of Scotland’s Safeguarding Service provides child protection resources and guidance, including advice on safe recruitment and safeguarding handbooks (The Church of Scotland, 2019a; The Church of Scotland, 2019b; The Church of Scotland, 2019c).
The Church in Wales has published safeguarding and child protection guidance in their safeguarding policy (The Church in Wales, 2019).
The Church of Ireland has published a child safeguarding policy (PDF) which is also approved for use in Northern Ireland (Church of Ireland, 2018).
The Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency has a national safeguarding policy for the Catholic Church in England and Wales (Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency, 2021).
The Vatican has published safeguarding and child protection guidance (PDF), “vos estis lux mundi”, obliging every Catholic diocese to report abuse and violence (The Vatican, 2019).
The Movement for Reform Judaism has a child safeguarding policy (PDF) with useful definitions and resources to help identify and disclose child abuse and neglect (The Movement for Reform Judaism, 2021).
The United Synagogue has a child protection policy (PDF) for use in its synagogues across the UK (United Synagogue, 2023).
The Network for Jewish Youth Provision, Reshet, in conjunction with the Jewish Leadership Council, has created a Safeguarding in the Jewish Community position paper (PDF) (Reshet, 2018).
Keep up to date with new legislation and guidance by signing up to CASPAR, our current awareness service for policy, practice and research.
