Fr Robert Thompson, Vicar of St Mary's with All Souls', Kilburn, and St James's and the Sherriff Centre, West Hampstead, and a member of General Synod, explores why the Church's next safeguarding challenge is not compliance, but culture. A thoughtful reflection on accountability, trust, and creating churches where people feel safe to speak.

In this guest blog, Fr Robert Thompson, Vicar of St Mary's with All Souls', Kilburn, and St James's and the Sherriff Centre, West Hampstead, reflects on the deeper cultural and institutional challenges that continue to shape safeguarding in the Church.

When a leader associated with safeguarding failures steps into a role centred on restoration, the question is simple. On what basis?

Safeguarding within church contexts has, rightly, focused on protecting children and vulnerable adults, often where clergy or church officers have been the source of harm. But this has created a fundamental blind spot. There is far less recognition or confidence when harm flows in the opposite direction, from congregant to clergy.

Safeguarding competence is not a matter of sex or gender. Sex or gender does not make someone a safe pair of hands. Safeguarding is about judgement, accountability, humility, and moral courage. It is about how power is exercised, constrained, and scrutinised. It is about what happens when harm is disclosed, when difficult questions are asked, and when institutional reputation is at stake.

Victim-survivors don’t experience safeguarding as a policy. They experience it as a decision: will you protect me, or will you protect yourselves?