Keeping Our Meetings Safe
Quakers in Scotland along with Local Development Workers have designed and created a new Safeguarding workshop for Friends across Britain to deliver in their own local meetings.
The Keeping Our Meetings Safe (KOMS) workshop introduces Quaker communities to the key principles of safeguarding.
"The project grew out of a conversation at a Quaker family picnic in Edinburgh," explained Zoe Prosser, the Local Development Worker for Scotland. "We realised that while safeguarding is the responsibility of everyone - not everyone knows what they should do if they have a safeguarding concern."
Friends agreed it would be useful to create a resource to enable Quaker communities to run their own sessions on safeguarding, with the take home message being that 'everyone has a part to play in keeping our meetings safe.'
"In Scotland, we built on the work of Friends like Ruth Iley who coined the KOMS acronym and along with Local Development Workers Sarah Shaw and Alison Tarpey-Black we committed to producing a resource that could be used by Quakers across England, Scotland and Wales."
The team have produced a padlet (see the link below) which is a virtual storage board where all the resources are on one easily accessible page.
"The padlet includes a workshop plan designed for the person running the session and a film we made that highlights the actions we need to take to protect ourselves and each other," explained Edinburgh Quaker Madeleine Harding. “In addition we have included safeguarding scenarios for use in small group work."
"Friends can choose to stick to the core script, facilitating the workshop in 90 minutes, or communities can allow the event to be more spacious with additional opportunities for further exploration," Zoe explained. “And if local meetings would like help with planning or facilitating the workshop, they just need to get in touch with their Local Development Worker."
You can access the Keeping Our Meetings Safe padlet here Keeping Our Meetings Safe
If you'd like more information please email supportmeetings@quaker.org.uk or you can click the button below to contact your Local Development Worker directly.