The recent news of two childcare workers in separate states, arrested and charged with alleged child abuse offences, sent shockwaves through the community.  

It’s a stark reminder of the importance of child safe practices encompassing a range of measures including good recruitment and screening processes (including reference checks), reporting mechanisms and risk management.  Concerningly, there were previous incidents in both cases but neither triggered a review of their respective Working with Children Checks, nor were prospective employers aware any prior concerns.  

The church’s policy Breaking the Silence, needs to underpin our ministry structures and practices so that cultures are created in which all people feel safe to disclose and report, but also to prevent and minimise abuse from occurring. 

In this way, let nothing hinder people from coming to Jesus and hearing his life-giving Word.

In His service, Vera

BTS Online Training update 

In our May newsletter, we mentioned that the BTS online Training Course is being updated.

It’s taken a bit longer than first expected, but we’re making good progress. The format will be different and we are working with a number of other denominations to agree on a safe church training framework which can be recognised across denominations.

We aim to release the revised online training early next year. If your church would like to be involved in road testing the revised training, please contact Akos on cpu-training@jerichoroad.org.au . 

Stay tuned.

CPU email addresses have changed! 

Due to a new IT provider, all the CPU emails have changed.  

Rest assured there is a redirect in place for our old email addresses which ended in “pcnsw.org.au” so we will still receive your email if you use our old address.  

Our new email addresses now end in “jerichoroad.org.au”.  For example, our general contact address cpu@pcnsw.org.au is now cpu@jerichoroad.org.au.

If you have any CPU details on your church website or correspondence, please update this accordingly.

You can visit the BTS Contact page for all our updated email addresses. 

BTS Survey: We want to hear from you! 

We would like to learn more about how the CPU can support your church needs regarding BTS, and how we can improve this BTS newsletter.

Please share your thoughts via a short 3-5 minute anonymous survey below. The survey will close on 5th September so it would be much appreciated if you can complete it as soon as possible.  

Thank you for your input! 

'Refreshed' BTS Website is coming soon

The new BTS refreshed Website is almost here!

We’ve moved things around to make them easier to find. An audit landing page will be added with all the information and forms required when your church is due for a BTS audit.  

We hope to launch by late September and encourage you to have a look around.  There’s always a range of resources available to help your church and your people be safer.

The website address will stay the same (breakingthesilence.org.au). 

A few reminders about BTS Audits

Auditing is a key part of the CPU's work, ensuring PCNSW compliance with our policy, BTS, and legislative requirements. 

Our auditor, Linda Wild, works hard to ensure that all congregations are audited in a timely manner.  It is both desirable and necessary for Linda to coordinate multiple audits in geographical proximity due to the time and expense involved. If Linda contacts your church to be audited, please make every effort to be available during her period of availability.  

Similarly, please avoid late cancellations.  

It may be some time until a face-to-face audit can be rescheduled, increasing the risk of non-compliance and other issues. Thank you to those congregations which have participated thus far. Overall, congregations find it a helpful process to have dedicated time to discuss safe ministry practices in their specific contexts.   

When audits have been completed and there are areas of non-compliance such as providing extract minutes as evidence.  

If this is your responsibility, please bring these items identified in the audit report into compliance within the time frames given.  A church is not considered compliant until it receives its BTS letter of endorsement.

Audit Visits May to August 2025:

• ACT Presbytery: Gungahlin, St Andrews ACT, Belconnen/Weston Creek, Tuggeranong/Jerrabomberra, Queanbeyan

• WA Presbytery: Bassendean, Bicton, Peppermint Grove, West Leederville, Fremantly, Albury and Mandurah

Audit visits in planning September to November 2025: 

• Sydney South Presbytery

• Mid North Coast Presbytery

• Northern Rivers Presbytery

New 'FAQ' on adult-child ratios for church activities

We've added a new 'Frequently Asked Question' (FAQ) to the BTS Website addressing the following question:

FAQ 16: What are the adult:child ratios for Ages 3-5 (pre-school) and Kindergarten to Y6 church activities?

Click below to be taken to the FAQ section of the BTS Website: 

Please find below a selection of curated external resources relevant to abuse issues. Please contact the CPU if you would like information on a specific resource.

NSW Elder Abuse Toolkits

This is a PDF showing a simple 5 step way to identifying and responding to the abuse of older people. 

Free Webinar: Navigating online safety and s*xual development

This webinar discusses how the new eSafety commissioner's resource 'Online Safety and S*xual development guidance' came about, and insight into how to use the resource with the families you work with, including case scenarios to illustrate practical examples.

Guide: Responding to children and young people's disclosure of abuse

This is a guide to responding to children and young people’s disclosures of abuse and maltreatment. It also outlines what we know about how, why and when children and young people are likely to disclose abuse and provides information to help individuals respond to these disclosures. 

Podcast: Supporting children who have experienced s*xual abuse

In this pocast episode from the 'Emerging Minds' podcast, Sophie McEvoy, a therapist and team leader working with the Child Sexual Abuse Counselling Service and Rebuild Counselling for Victims of Crime at Relationships Australia South Australia (RASA) talks about her work with children who have experienced sexual abuse and their parents.

This includes ways to help children move past feelings of shame and self-blame that are often entrenched by perpetrators.