Faithful Safeguarding Podcast with Petros

Ep 12 PART 2 Series Takeaway Review w/ Madison Clarke

• Madison Clarke • Season 1 • Episode 12

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We explore how safeguarding moves beyond risk management to create environments where people feel safe, supported and empowered to speak up. 

This final episode examines balancing safety with rehabilitation, preventing issues through early intervention, addressing spiritual abuse, and maximizing volunteer potential in safeguarding.

• Understanding how past convictions lose predictive power over time, balancing risk assessment with evidence of personal change


• Importance of addressing low-level concerns early to prevent escalation of safeguarding issues


• How perpetrators in faith settings use distorted theology to justify abuse, causing profound spiritual harm


• Why open dialogue about difficult topics is essential in religious organizations


• The critical role volunteers play in effective safeguarding when properly trained and integrated


• Ways volunteers bring unique perspectives that enhance protection through their community connections

Feel free to email me at madison@petros.org.uk for topic suggestions and guests you'd like to hear from in season two.


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Madison Clarke:

In this part of the series we're shifting the focus. We know safeguarding isn't just about ticking boxes or managing risks. It's about creating environments where people feel safe, supported and empowered to speak up. We look at how organisations can recognise change and growth in individuals with past convictions, respond early to low-level concerns before they escalate, and open up honest conversations about some of the toughest topics, especially in faith settings. We also explore how volunteers, when properly trained and included, can be a huge asset to safeguarding efforts by building cultures of transparency, accountability and trust. Safeguarding can become less about fear and more about confidence, care and community. I hope you enjoy this final episode of the Faithful Safeguarding Podcast, series 1. We start with Episode 6, old Convictions, new Perspectives. Dr Carl Hansen focused on the concept of desistance. He explained that, over time, old criminal convictions lose their predictive power, which highlights the need for risk assessments which can balance historical data with evidence of rehabilitation and personal change.

Dr. Karl Hanson:

The criminal history by itself isn't a determined unassumable risk, but it's a consideration. Determine unassumable risk, but it's a consideration. And, I guess, keep open to the possibility that somebody has changed, that they're no longer the person they were, you know, 5, 10, 15 years ago and that they're able to, you know, adequately do the job in a reasonable way. I think the managers and the decision makers have a responsibility for due diligence. You should check, but I think it's quite reasonable to make decisions like that.

Madison Clarke:

The challenge here is, then, to balance the need for safety with the potential for rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals with past convictions. Safeguarding leads should consider utilising dynamic risk assessment tools that account for evidence of personal change and provide supportive environments that can facilitate reintegration. This is a daunting task, potentially, for safeguarding leads to do on their own, so I think it's also really important to remember that you can consult with risk assessment experts such as Karl Hansen, who we're really fortunate enough to work with at Petros. As well as risk assessments, prevention is so key in safeguarding. We spoke with Simon Davies, who provided practical strategies for early intervention, which really aid in prevention of safeguarding concerns. He discussed how addressing low-level concerns proactively, using tools like the what Should I Do app and encouraging external expertise can really help prevent issues from escalating and also build trust across different sectors and also build trust across different sectors.

Simon Davies:

The other thing that we're seeing is a real under-reporting and under-documenting of low-level concerns, and I know that's something we've spoken about offline before, maddy. It's interesting that, whether it's a cultural thing and I don't know whether it's Australia-specific, but people don't want to. You know this is an Australian expression but dobbing their mate, you know, they see something minor and they think, oh, you know, I don't want to. You know Jim's my friend. I don't want to get him into too much trouble. It's a pretty minor thing. You know I don't want to report it, I don't want to make a big thing out of it. No-transcript, there's nothing. So I think you know institutions really need to get better at recording and reporting the low level things, if we call them that.

Madison Clarke:

Simon points out here that organizations can often overlook minor issues or something that's perceived as a minor issue, which leads to more significant problems later on. Therefore, if organisations can implement clear procedures for reporting and addressing all concerns, no matter how minor, and foster a culture of transparency and accountability, then we can make sure we're preventing safeguarding issues from escalating further. I think it's also important to highlight the need to account for the human in safeguarding. I think we often hear organisations say oh, we have really great policies and procedures, but we also need to make sure we're accounting for the individual themselves and the psychology behind reporting a concern and how difficult that can be. Accounting for the person, safeguarding and all the complicated issues that come up with us being flawed human beings is so crucial, and Tina Campbell addresses these issues in episode eight.

Tina Campbell:

I teach about this quite often is the fact that a perpetrator of abuse, particularly if it's somebody in the church, will use cognitive distortions to justify the abuse, and very often those cognitive distortions are driven by phrases like God wants this to happen, god wants me to do this, god has asked me to abuse you, this is God's way, special way, of loving you, and so on.

Tina Campbell:

And many of those cognitive distortions are incredibly disturbed and disturbing for others to realise, and I'm yet to find any research which has been focused on. What impact does that have on the spiritual life of a victim? And, I have to say, especially if it's a child victim, what understanding of God do they have that they are told and they are convinced that God wanted the abuse to happen? So I think there are areas in this that need to be looked at and explored and I also think about again priest religious who have been accused. Does anyone give attention to their spiritual life, given that they have been carrying, in order to commit the abuse, this belief that this is God asking them to do this?

Madison Clarke:

Tina challenges faith communities to confront difficult issues such as manipulation, coercive control and spiritual abuse.

Madison Clarke:

Drawing on her extensive international experience with religious congregations, she emphasised that effective safeguarding requires open dialogue, robust standards and the fresh perspective of external consultants. In Tina's episode, she highlights the need for religious organisations to address even the toughest topics head-on, to foster a culture of accountability and healing. Sometimes there may be a reluctance within faith communities to confront and discuss sensitive topics related to abuse, and Tina highlights how important it is to encourage an open dialogue but also to provide training which can help recognise and address all forms of abuse. It also shows how important it can be to engage external consultants, which can offer objective insights and supports. This can be hard, especially within religious organisations, who may have a culture of secrecy.

Madison Clarke:

I remember when I was doing my undergraduate dissertation, which focused on abuse within religious organisations, I was fortunate enough to speak with priests who were very open about the difficult topics of abuse and what had happened at the places that they worked and lived. But they mentioned how the culture of secrecy can be really hard to get through when you're trying to talk about abuse in different forms, and that's why it can be really hard to get through when you're trying to talk about abuse in different forms, and that's why it can be really helpful to work with external consultants who maybe can encourage those open conversations and dialogue. Everyone knows that volunteers are crucial to many organisations and that's what we discuss in two parts with Isabel King. Isabel provides practical insights on the roles of volunteers and safeguarding, emphasising the need to integrate them into the organisation rather than treating them as a separate entity from paid staff. She highlights best practices for recruitment, training and retention, particularly within youth and faith-based settings.

Isabelle King:

Volunteers are the lifeblood of most charities and organisations. Volunteers. They enhance the protection we can give when we work closely with young people and adults at risk. They're very well positioned to identify signs of abuse, neglect or harm and, by engaging volunteers in safeguarding efforts, they can add a layer of oversight and address any risks identified really promptly and, in some cases, better than paid staff and or other agency professional staff. They play a critical role in fostering trust and a sense of belonging through actively participating in safeguarding practices, reassuring individuals and their families that protective measures are in place. If they engage with the organisation, which is really critical, often they all come from diverse backgrounds and they bring a unique perspective and local knowledge. By engaging them in safeguarding, organisations can bespoke their approach to meeting the community's needs and create a safeguarding culture that's both collaborative and empowering to the community.

Madison Clarke:

We can see that volunteers can often lack the same level of safeguarding training and accountability as paid staff, which can lead to inconsistencies in safeguarding training and accountability as paid staff, which can lead to inconsistencies in safeguarding practices, particularly when volunteers are relied on so heavily.

Madison Clarke:

In order to counter this, we need to make sure that we're developing clear safeguarding policies that include volunteers. They also need to provide accessible and role-specific training and establish ongoing supervision for volunteers to ensure that safeguarding is embedded in all aspects of their work. In part two of Isabel's episode, she expands on this, stressing the importance of leadership and setting the tone for a culture of safeguarding that fully includes volunteers, regardless of the organisation size. She shares how skilled and enthusiastic volunteers, when well trained and supportive, can play a really vital role in developing safeguarding practices and identifying themes in referrals and shaping safe environments. I think what we should take from isabel's episode is just how crucial volunteers can be and what a great extension of your safeguarding team they can provide when they're properly trained and supported. Thank you so much for listening to the Faithful Safeguarding Podcast. Feel free to email me at madison at petrosorguk for topic suggestions and guests you'd like to hear from in season two.