SPOC Information and Resources

Church of England

The information on this page is designed to guide the Single Point of Contact through their audit process. It includes helpful explainer videos to clarify the steps involved throughout the audit. For more detailed information, please refer to your Safeguarding Audit Handbook.

Welcome from our Lead Auditor, Jim Gamble

SPOC Handbook

The SPOC Handbook provides detailed information about the Independent Safeguarding Audit specifically for you, the Single Point of Contact (SPOC) at your Church body. Use this guide to navigate the audit process.

The 360° Audit Tool Explained

Tips on Sharing Your Surveys & Amplifying Impact

How We Communicate With Your Community

The Audit team will interact with different groups of staff and volunteers during each Audit through the following means:

1-1 Discussions

Listening to staff and volunteers within the Diocese and Cathedral workforce is a fundamental element of the Audit. Our discussions, whilst informal, will follow a structured framework. They will be focused on individual roles, day-to-day responsibilities and their understanding of safeguarding. It may also touch upon their involvement in recent and contemporary safeguarding issues. Everyone who attends will receive a briefing note prior to their discussion taking place which outlines information to be discussed. This should hopefully alleviate any fears or concerns individuals may have.

Focus Groups

The focus groups are designed to be large enough to provide a credible and representative sample of staff and volunteers at differing levels across all audited bodies, but small enough to facilitate in-depth discussions and ensure that everyone’s voice is heard. Listening to and learning from different communities and groups is an important part of the Audit, in order to obtain both depth and breadth of experiences from a range of perspectives. We would encourage audited bodies to promote attendance at focus groups to achieve as wide a reach as possible.

Surveys

Utilising surveys to glean insights from diverse communities and groups constitutes a vital aspect of the Audit process. It offers an avenue for individuals not directly engaged in discussions or focus groups to express their perspectives on safeguarding. To ensure comprehensive representation from all audited entities, we strongly advocate for the widespread promotion of these surveys.

Meet the Independent Audit Team

Click their names for more information

Jim is a former Chief Police Officer and was the founding Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre. He is currently CEO of INEQE Safeguarding Group, Independent Child Safeguarding Commissioner of the City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership, and the Independent Chair of Bromley Safeguarding Children Partnership.

Jim is a former UK Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) lead for child abuse investigations, internet safety and countering child trafficking. He was a co-author on the UK’s first Domestic Homicide Review and, in 2010, was appointed by the Home Secretary to lead the initial scoping review of the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

More recently, he led a wide-ranging safeguarding review of an NHS Trust, Oxfam GB and an international faith-based organisation at the request of the Charity Commission.

He has also commissioned and overseen a number of contemporary Serious Case and Practice Learning Reviews, including the recent Child Q.

Jim has been called to give evidence to the UK Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and has appeared before numerous Parliamentary Committees.

Having graduated from the UK College of Policing Senior Command Course, he completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Criminology and Criminal Justice Management at Cambridge University.

Rory is a qualified social worker with over thirty years of experience in children’s services. He holds an in-depth knowledge across a broad range of services, having held both strategic and operational responsibility for children’s social care, adult safeguarding, youth offending, youth services, early years services, domestic abuse services, LSCBs and LSCPs.

Rory co-designed and delivered the first Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub in the UK and also works as the Senior Professional Advisor (SPA) for the safeguarding partnership in the City of London and Hackney. He was previously the SPA of the City & Hackney Safeguarding Board, the first LSCB in the country to be awarded an outstanding grade by Ofsted in 2016.

Rory has significant experience in coordinating effective safeguarding arrangements that deliver impact and make children safer. He has designed learning & improvement systems, delivered safeguarding training at all levels and has written a number of contemporary practice learning reviews, including co-authoring the Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review and update report into Child Q. He is one of the lead auditors on INEQE’s team.

Hannah is the Director of Operations at INEQE Safeguarding Group. Through working with children in the UK and abroad, Hannah has developed a strong practical insight regarding the context of the risks they face. This is accompanied by the academic studies and research associated with her M.Phil from Trinity College Dublin and an LLM from Queens University Belfast, which focused on human rights and the International Criminal Court.

She has significant practical experience working within the third sector with children and vulnerable young people in the UK, India, Kosovo and Africa. Added to this, she plays a leading role in INEQE’s programme of safeguarding reviews and has been involved in all of INEQE’s recent and ongoing reviews.

Lynne is a Senior Safeguarding Advisor with over 28 years of policing experience, having served in leadership roles in Northern Ireland and England. She joined South Yorkshire Police in 2020 as a Superintendent for Operations.

She spent many years as a senior investigating officer in Public Protection roles including child abuse, rape crime and domestic abuse. She is an advocate for victims of domestic abuse and sexual crime and worked closely with the Crown Prosecution Service in England to improve the police response.

Prior to joining INEQE, Lynne was the Violence against Women and Girls Engagement (VAWG) Lead with the National Police Chief’s Council and the College of Policing. She holds a BA (Hons) in Public Policy and Management and a Master of Studies in Applied Criminology and Police Management from the University of Cambridge.

Lauren is a Senior Research Analyst and the Lead Researcher on the Church of England Audit Programme. She holds an MSc in Psychological Research Methods in Child Development and a BSc with Honours in Psychology. In her undergraduate degree, her final year thesis explored how the environmental shift to formal schooling affected the development of false belief understanding in children. Subsequently, her Masters thesis focused on differences in neurocognitive development depending on age children entered formal education.

Post-graduation, Lauren worked for 2 years with children ranging from 9 months to 8 years of age of various developmental abilities before starting her position as Research Officer at INEQE Safeguarding Group.

Danielle is a Safeguarding Auditor and Trainer at INEQE Safeguarding Group. Graduating from the University of Greenwich with a degree in Primary Education, she cultivated a personal interest in safeguarding and child protection in relation to domestic abuse and childhood trauma. Going on to develop practical insight into these areas through her work as a teacher, Danielle has taught in primary and secondary schools across Northern Ireland and Northern and Southern England, working with children from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds, abilities, and age groups. She previously led a team in the creation and development of safeguarding materials and continues to deliver training courses for schools, parents and organisations working with children.

Sharon has 30 years’ experience in customer service. Through this time, she has worked in several managerial roles within sectors including retail, finance and safeguarding. She has implemented customer relationship management systems that have involved identifying and researching areas of growth for new business, and has extensive experience in event management, implementing business processes, new business development, and project document management.
  • To contact INEQE’s Single Point of Contact (SPOC) please email: [email protected]

  • Alternatively, please contact INEQE Safeguarding Group via telephone: +44 (0) 28 90 232 060

Trauma Informed Practice

INEQE takes a trauma-informed approach to ensure that the voices of victims and survivors are heard at all levels. Measures are adopted to support them before, during, and after their engagement with the audit team.

To achieve a positive outcome for victims and survivors, participants can choose how they wish to engage with the audit team, whether through face-to-face discussions, confidential surveys or contact forms, or online video calls. INEQE gathers their accounts using the method that best provides participants with choice and empowerment.