Good Practice 5: Policy and good practice guidance in safeguarding children, young people and adults at risk is the United Reformed Church’s (URC) latest comprehensive policy and good practice guide.

Every church using the URC's safeguarding policies has been sent a copy.

Ioannis Athanasiou, URC Safeguarding Advisor, said: "The new edition aims at enabling everyone, members and workers of the URC, to take safeguarding seriously. Protecting people from abuse, harm or neglect is not just about reading and adopting policies and procedures. In order to make a difference, they must be put into practice, and so this document offers advice about how this can be achieved."

The document is also intended to be used by Synods, Resource Centres for Learning, and all offices within the URC.

It contains a ‘model safeguarding policy’ for local churches, listed as Appendix A, and there are also several other appendices, many of which are available on the dedicated webpage. More appendices are in development and will be added to the webpage in due course.

Additional copies of the book can be bought from the URC Online Shop for £4.99 +p+p.

Alternatively, a PDF version can be downloaded for free here.

_{Published: 4 March 2020}