A vital national survey to understand how victims and survivors would like to be involved in the development and implementation of a Church of England survivor engagement framework, has been launched today. This framework will set out how victims and survivors of abuse will inform the Church’s work to develop and improve safeguarding.

The anonymous survey will run for two months and is open to any victim or survivor who would like to engage with the Church to inform its work. The questions were formed with survivors who have provided valuable input and feedback in terms of content and promotion of the survey.

The National Safeguarding Team (NST) is committed to the development and implementation of this framework with victims and survivors. The Team already engages regularly with a number of victims and survivors and wishes to see more people engaged with different strands of its work.

The survey is not about asking questions relating to victims and survivors’ past or present experiences of abuse, harm or neglect but to understand better how victims and survivors would like to be involved in developing the framework, in what ways and what formats. Its purpose is to listen to victims and survivors, including those who have not engaged with the Church previously, about how they would like to be involved in developing and implementing this framework and enable victims and survivors of any form of abuse to engage in different workstreams in the Church, including its response to victims and survivors of abuse.

The anonymous survey is available on the survivor engagement webpage of Church of England’s website and runs for two months from 19 July until 18 September 2022. Learning from the survey will inform a publicly accessible report, which will include key themes and next steps to develop the framework and will be published on the same webpage.

Bishop Julie Conalty, deputy lead safeguarding bishop for survivor engagement said: “The survivor voice is vital to our ongoing safeguarding work in the Church. It is not just about listening but acting on what we hear. This survey is part of the Church’s commitment to meaningful, transparent and impactful survivor engagement work. I hope we can learn from those who come forward and share their views to develop this new framework.”