Local churches have been given a vital task, keeping records for a minimum of 45 years, with key groups recommending 100 years or ‘indefinately’ meaning forever.
Churches have been on notice since the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse issued a recommendation that “that institutions that engage in child-related work retain, for at least 45 years, records relating to child sexual abuse that has occurred or is alleged to have occurred. This is to allow for delayed disclosure of abuse by victims and to take account of limitation periods for civil actions for child sexual abuse.”
45 years is the minimum. The Sydney Anglicans have issued detailed instructions, and say “ALL of our safe ministry related records need to be kept indefinitely.”
Across town, the Catholic intructions are similar – permanent retention of child safeguarding records.
Creating Safe Spaces, a ministry of the NSW/ACT Baptists, say Given that there is now no time limit on claims made in relation to child sexual abuse, it would be wise to retain all relevant documentation for well beyond 45 years.” Joseph Lam, the NSW/ACT Baptists’ Ministry Standards and Insurance Administrator told The Other Cheek “Our recommendation is to document Safe Church precautions and to retain the relevant documents for at least 45 years (probably longer).”
The Other Cheek has heard churches have been told to keep records for 100 years.
The Victorian Government requires Public offices, and any government funded offices requires keeping safeguading documnent for 45 or 100 years. The NSW rules for schools require retention of risk of significant harm reports for a minimum of 70 years.
What needs to be kept
The Sydney Anglican rules say ” for each person who works with children in our churches, we need to keep details of every WWCC [Working with Children Check] verification, every Safe Ministry Training course they do, every leadership role they hold, and so on. Nothing is to be overwritten, deleted or thrown out.
“When people leave your church or die, their record must not be deleted – ever. They can be ‘archived’ but never deleted.”
(“Working with Children Check” is a NSW, Victorian, WA and SA term, in Queensland it is a “Blue Card”, in Tasmania a Working with Vulnerable Children Check, and in the ACT Working with Vulnerable People.)
The Catholic rules similarly include details of children attending church events, as well as the WWCC and other details of leaders.
Key documents include any reports of harm or abuse to government agencies, and to local ministers, and any safe ministry reports.
Why so long
The Royal Commission’s final report says “Survivors who spoke with us during a private session took, on average, 23.9 years to tell someone about the abuse and men often took longer to disclose than women (the average for females was 20.6 years and for males was 25.6 years).”
That records the average time it took for survivors who disclosed as an adult to tell someone. It could be longer until a formal complaint is made.
The experience of perpetrator Frank Houston and his victims forms a case study. Still the subject of litigation, Frank Houston’s abuse of his Australian victim/survivor was disclosed to Pastor in 1998. The sexual assault of the 8-year-old victim/survivor occured in 1970. But Frank Houston had an unknown number of New Zealand victims as well. He was born in 1922, and could have been offending fron the 1940s. Eighty years later the case is still ongoing and arguably a victim/survivor from New Zealand could/should seek redress.
Where to keep documents
Churches have never experienced keeping sensitive documents for 100 years or more, that need to remain both private and accessible.
Paper copies are not recommended which means coming to terms with computer based solution – and this is possibly the most controversial part of the process. Data storage has changed rapidly, most computers sold no longer have CD or DVD drives – storage system which might have been recommended ten years ago.
The most detailed storage instructions come from the Sydney Anglican documents.
They suggest storing data on a primary computerand uploading to the cloud.
They give “Examples of inappropriate long-term digital storage locations:”
- The average church office PC with poor security provisions.
- The minister’s laptop (with poor security provisions)
- External hard disk drives
- USB flash drives
Having created a file structure system that allows data to be found easily, they suggest “the best expression for the type of cloud storage that our churches should be looking for is a cloud backup solution where one or more folders or drives on a local system (ie: your church desktop or laptop) is mirrored to a cloud service.”
They suggest that churches should not use free cloud solutions like Google drive, iCloud, or the free version of Dropbox, but private paid-for solutions. There is a question about the longevity of private providers, but any solution will require monitoring and updating, especially about access.
They recommend these document formats
- csv (NOT Excel format .xls files)
- Word files – bit of a question over these. and keeping a .txt or .rtf version of files is recommended.
Some churches will find these requirements difficult. Small churches with aging congregations, or church plants, especially those that don’t last long are obvious weak spots. But a good faith response to the Royal Commission is a minimum requirement for followers of Christ.
Image Credit: Mohammed Hassan / pxhere.com
Updated to include the Joseph Lam quote.