Past Cases Review Ten Years On

It is now ten years since the Methodist Church produced a report looking at all known cases of abuse from the previous 50 years and committed itself to taking action. Following over 2,500 referrals, many hours of professional casework were undertaken and common themes emerged providing the Church with an action plan to improve and respond appropriately to victims and survivors.

Over the coming year, we are sharing monthly reflections on what this has meant for the Church.

Kate Little, Safeguarding Survivor Lead Officer in the Connexional Safeguarding Team, contributes this latest in the series of reflections on the Methodist Church’s progress 10 years on from the Past Cases Review. She writes of her own personal learning from working closely with survivors and also focuses on the Methodist Church’s work to fulfilling the recommendations which directly mention survivors of abuse.

As Helen Cameron and Judith Davey-Cole have both highlighted, I believe there have been significant improvements in the Methodist Church’s approach to safeguarding and its response to victims and survivors of abuse. However, we still have a long way to go before our response to victims and survivors of abuse is as truly trauma-informed as it should be.

In July 2016, in my first week of employment with the Methodist Church’s Safeguarding Team, I attended the inaugural meeting of the Methodist Survivors Advisory Group, in which people with lived experience of abuse met with representatives of the Methodist Church leadership. One of my major learning points from that emotionally-charged meeting with people subjected to abuse was firstly, the severe and lifelong negative impact of experiencing abuse and secondly, the fact that where the abuse has been perpetrated within the church, the sense of betrayal and breach of trust can be even more distressing. Thirdly, I learnt that for many victims and survivors, the negative, belittling, silencing, disbelieving response they received from the Methodist Church, when they eventually plucked up courage to speak out, was often more traumatising than the original abuse.

My work over the past 9 years with many different survivors of abuse has changed me. I was quite naïve when I started and had not realised the number of people affected by abuse within the church, nor the high number of Methodists/Christians who perpetrate abuse nor the severe impact on sufferers. As a Christian, I have viewed this as God teaching me important life lessons to help me to serve better in this role. Those of us who have not experienced abuse can never fully understand, but can humbly learn from the wisdom of brave survivors willing to share their experiences.

The PCR had 2 recommendations which referred specifically to survivors of abuse.

• 20. That all reviews and amendments to policies and training material involve consultation with victims/ survivors.
• 23. That a connexional resource be identified to support survivors/victims if district support is not appropriate/possible; and that resources be identified to support working with established survivor/victim groups

We now have a dedicated budget to pay for counselling/therapy for survivors of abuse perpetrated within the Methodist Church. The Methodist Survivors Advisory Group (MSAG) now has 13 members with lived experience who advise the Methodist Church on policies, training material and much more. This has moved beyond mere “consultation” to “co-production” with survivors involved and heard fully from the start of each process. The MSAG also offer a series of 1-hour training Zoom webinars to teach others within the church how to respond well to survivors. We also have a Survivor Engagement Forum which meets every other month, as a way in for new survivors interested to get involved in this work to meet others in a similar situation and to hear more about the church’s attempts to learn from survivors.

The Methodist Church’s journey continues as we strive to become a safer place where victims and survivors of abuse can expect to be listened to and believed, assisted and supported.