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August 2022 SMR News
Welcome to the August Newsletter!
And a special hello to the numerous people new to the role of SMR - welcome to the madhouse of Safe Ministry! :)
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- Keeping key people in the loop
- Reminder: Child Safe Scheme - more info and a free code for SMT course
- Face to Face Training - September
- Faithfulness in Ministry 2023
- Tweaking Safe Ministry Record keeping
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Keeping Key People in the Loop
I can be easy for SMR's to get consumed with doing the right thing and immersing yourselves in Safe Ministry record maintenance, chasing people whose training is expiring, etc.
But don't forget to make and keep a list of people in your church who will benefit from regular info from you (as appropriate).
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- Parish Council - These people can and should be some of your greatest allies in the ongoing work to see Safe Ministry be part of your church culture. While the Safe Ministry To Children Ordinance 2020 makes an annual report to PC mandatory, why not speak with your Senior Minister about making more regular reports - say, quarterly?
It's a great way to keep things in front of key decision and policy makers of your church. There is a template for this report, but don't feel constrained by that - you can add whatever you feel is appropriate to a report. I would also strongly suggest that you ask to present the reports in person so you can respond to questions as well as getting a feel for the room about the matters you report on.
- SRE Coordinators - If your church has one of these, make sure they are on your list of people to notify if there is any change in qualifications for any people who are SRE teachers. eg: if an SRE teacher's SMT expires or if the church is notified of a change of WWCC status.
It is important that the coordinator is aware of such things so they can be sure only the correctly qualified people are teaching in our community's schools.
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Child Safe Scheme - more info
This appeared in the last newsletter, but leaving it here for all the new SMRs:
In February, the OCG sent out a newsletter which was largely focussed on the Child Safe Scheme and the Child Safe Standards.
There was a lot of good info, and so I'm repeating it here.
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Webinars
New to this OCG newsletter is that they are running a series of webinars to provide an overview of each of the 10 Child Safe Standards with tips on how to embed them as part of your organisation (church).
If interested, you can register here.
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Reportable Conduct Scheme - new form
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As an organisation which has obligations under the Reportable Conduct Scheme, your church needs to use the new web-based 7-day form when notifying allegations under the Scheme. You can no longer notify allegations using the old PDF form.
Reportable Conduct form
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And in case you haven't been there recently, the OCG has a shiny new website.
Looks great - but be aware that this means that many if not all OCG links that you may have collected may now not work!
A good excuse to have a browse around the site, because there is LOTS of good info there.
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Want to see how the Child Safe Standards are integrated into our Training?
Check out episode 12 of Frontline!
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Face to Face Training
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The next face to face training events are just around the corner on:
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September 3rd
- St Matthias Anglican Church, Centennial Park (Essentials)
- St James Anglican Church, Turramurra (Refresher)
- Life Anglican Church, Riverstone (Refresher)
- St Michael’s Anglican Cathedral, Wollongong (Refresher)
We are finding that numbers for f2f training remain very low, so please do what you can to promote these events in your church to people who might benefit ASAP.
Don't forget that even for face to face training, everyone must have an account on the Training website, and must enrol in a course via the website. If older or disabled people struggle with that process, please do what you can to get assistance for them.
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Enrolments will close at midnight on September 1st.
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SMR Facebook Group
A reminder that we have a private Facebook group just for SMR's
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- A safe and private place for SMR's to ask questions, support each other, share ideas or solutions to problems, etc
- The address is: https://www.facebook.com/groups/173114257798286
- Involvement in this group is entirely optional - but it is proving to be a useful extra channel for SMR's to chat amongst themselves and pose questions to me.
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Faithfulness in Ministry Conference 2023
This is a triennial conference for all licenced clergy and authorised Lay Ministers in the diocese. Think of it as in-service training for them.
The Archbishop requires them to attend as a condition of their licence/authority.
In 2023 it will be held in June
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What does this have to do with you as an SMR? VERY LITTLE!
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But no matter how much we repeat this, a significant number of attendees believe that it is the same as Safe Ministry Training.
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It is not, and has nothing to do with the requirement to refresh SMT every three years.
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So I thought I would alert you to the event, so that if you are in conversation with your ministry staff or retired clergy in your church you can drop into the conversation how FiM is unrelated to Safe Ministry Training.
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That said, the conference website is here: https://fim.church Take a look and if you find the topics interesting, and feel that you might like to attend, let me know because I'm sure we can accommodate you. Note that there is no cost for the conference.
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Tweaking Safe Ministry Records
We continue to try and tweak our Training system to make things a little easier for you as an SMR on the ground.
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- SMR Completion Emails. You should be receiving an email every time someone who has indicated they attend your church completes Safe Ministry Training. That email will contain their certificate details. This is designed to help you avoid having to chase individuals for their new SMT info.
If you are not getting these emails, please let me know.
- Elvanto Integration. If your church uses Elvanto as it's Church Management System, are you aware that we offer an automatic system that will update the SMT info in your church Elvanto system when a person in your church completes their SMT?
There is a one-off cost, but with some coding improvements to the system just around the corner, this will be an even more robust and secure solution for church SMR's wanting to keep their church Safe Ministry data up to date in real time.
Details here: https://courses.safeministry.training/elvanto-integration/
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If you have suggestions for how we can help you improve your record keeping processes, drop me a line.
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Keeping up to date with news
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An archive of all SMR Newsletters (since we moved to our new system) is available here.
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That's it for this edition...
If you are no longer the SMR for your church, please unsubscribe using the link below and drop me an email to let me know.
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