By Mark Bowling
THE outgoing chief executive officer of Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd says the Church requires constant vigilance to ensure the ongoing protection and safety of children.
Sheree Limbrick served for nearly four years as head of the independent company formed in response to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.
Last December the Australian Catholic Bishops’ announced that ACSL would replace the original company set up in 2016 – Catholic Professional Standards Limited and take over responsibility for all areas of safeguarding and professional standards to prevent sexual abuse in the Church.
“The Royal Commission and the last three decades should have taught us that this work is never done,” Ms Limbrick said.
“This needs constant vigilance, constant attention and we also need to change – you can’t have the same people in these jobs all the time, you’ve got to bring in fresh eyes.”
With a strong background working with vulnerable children and families in Victoria, Ms Limbrick has resigned to take up a consultancy in the child protection area, but will assist with a handover for ACSL’s new chief executive officer Dr Ursula Stephens.
In the meantime, she has been taking a long break travelling through south east Queensland, and reflecting on four years of ground-breaking safeguarding work that now hold Church leaders accountable for the activities under their jurisdiction.
“The Royal Commission did the Australian community a massive service in bringing this conversation to light but also looking beyond saying it’s a cultural thing and saying what are the things we can do to prevent the abuse into the future,” Ms Limbrick said.
“To paraphrase (Royal Commissioner) Robert Fitzgerald AM, to prevent child abuse now and into the future we need to be a committed community, equipped with the knowledge and awareness to eradicate abuses.
“Abuse, in all its forms, thrives in secrecy, and so it is critical that we continue the conversation about abuse and prevention.”
In the early days of CPSL, she admits, there was “a mixed bag of conversations” – from survivors, advocates and from parishioners – about what an independent safeguarding body could achieve within the Church.
“There was general resistance and distrust about what CPSL was going to do, and that was mixed with great hope and expectation,” Ms Limbrick said.
“The distrust didn’t just come externally, some of it came from within the Church.
“There were those who said ‘who were we to tell bishops what to do’ – which was never the approach we took.
“And from outside there were lots of people saying ‘this is going to be no different – the Church won’t change.”
With Ms Limbrick at the helm, CPSL initially developed the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards that has become a benchmark for the safety of children and vulnerable adults.
ACSL now uses these standards to audit compliance, across all Church activities.
This includes about 220 Church entities including Catholic dioceses, congregations and institutions providing education, health and aged care, social and community services, pastoral care and other services.
CPSL/ACSL also publicly reports audit findings and provides education and training that supports the Safeguarding Standards.
Ms Limbrick said “listening to outside voices” remained a challenge for some within Church entities, and she warned against any complacency in how safeguarding was practiced.
“This work is never done,” she said.
“People do offend. We all need to build a defence mechanism and a resilience to those who seek to harm children.
“No decision should be made without thinking about children and their safety.
“We need both the prevention and the response to be working well.”
Ms Limbrick said she has met a large number of committed Church safeguarding workers during her tenure.
And she thanked survivors (of sexual abuse) and advocates who had trusted her with their stories and “courageously and quietly helped CPSL/ACSL to stay true to our purpose and maintain clear line of sight to those most horrendously abused within our Church”.
