The Conference of Religious of England and Wales has expanded its Secretariat with the recruitment of a new Safeguarding Adviser. Dani Wardman brings a wealth of experience to the role, having worked as a consultant helping organisations and institutions, including religious congregations, to implement and embed safeguarding policy and strategy. She has also worked in various roles as a volunteer, chief officer and trustee for charities working with abuse survivors.
CoR’s General Secretary, Valerie Nazareth, commented: “We hope that Dani’s arrival will not only mean that we can help ensure better provision for Religious in terms of safeguarding but will also enable us to look at a wider range of issues - as time will be freed up to focus on other matters.” The President of CoR, Fr Paul Smyth CMF added: “We had a very strong field of candidates and it was a competitive recruitment process. We are delighted with this new appointment.”
Dani, who will take up her post straight away, said: “It is a very exciting time to be joining CoR with so much impending change on the horizon. I hope to dispel all of the fear and anxiety around safeguarding and empower CoR’s members to perform their safeguarding duties to the highest standard. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility and as such the process and policy needs to be robust but it also needs to be straightforward and accessible to all. The concept of safeguarding [to protect people from harm] is a foundation stone of religious life and therefore the process to uphold this fundamental practice should be just as intuitive.”
One of eight safeguarding meetings involving over 100 people
The creation of the new Adviser role comes as CoR prepares to respond to the findings of IICSA later this year. During June an extensive range of meetings were held, via zoom, primarily with congregational leaders around England and Wales, to update them and provide information about an Independent Review into Safeguarding in the Catholic Church, being led by Ian Elliott.
CoR organised seven meetings for leaders and an additional one for safeguarding leads. Over one hundred people attended. Valerie Nazareth reflected : “It was a good opportunity to meet and we plan to have other similar sessions as matters develop this year. We gathered a lot of useful feedback which will be provided to the Independent Review.”