In the UK, churches and faith groups play a key role in our community life by bringing millions of people together not just for worship purposes but for a variety of activities and social gatherings. Many of these activities benefit their local communities and especially children, young people and vulnerable adults. Sadly, because churches as so open and welcoming, they often make very easy targets for pedophiles and other individuals with an intention to abuse and harm children and vulnerable people. Child abuse is on the increase in our society and sadly many churches and faith groups do not have the resources to implement robust safeguarding policies and procedures to protect children and other vulnerable people who attend their activities. This problem has resulted in many church/faith workers lacking a basic knowledge of safeguarding and therefore unable to help address and prevent abuse from occurring. We've all heard about past abuse cases in churches, that have gone unreported and unaddressed either through cover-up or simply because many small churches and their workers were ill equipped to recognise and deal with child abuse. This has left many child abuse victims to grow up traumatised owing to a lack of support and care when the incident occurred. In many instances, children and young people have died at the hands of their abusers or as a result of the abuse they suffered, while others struggle with the mental health outfall arising from the abuse they suffered. This is a dire situation that needs to be addressed urgently and because churches struggle to raise funds to operate, safeguarding is often deprioritised or ignored due to lack of understanding of its importance. It is for that reason that I have set up the Churches' Safeguarding Trust as a Community Interest Company (CIC) to educate, support and equip small to medium sized churches and faith bodies with the knowledge, skills and understanding needed to prevent child abuse from occurring and to create an environment that is safe and secure for everyone. Providing safeguarding training, advice and information to churches and faith groups around the country is quite expensive however I am determined to achieve this objective as it is important to keep children and young people safe therefore I would like to appeal for your support to enable me fulfill this mission. We need urgent funding to develop and provide safeguarding training materials, to provide information and advice and to deliver training in accessible regional venues across the UK. Your support will be much appreciated. Please visit my website at http://www.churches-safeguarding.org.uk/welcome.htm. Thank you.

Stephen Boyo