At St Andrew’s all our work with children and vulnerable adults is governed by the safeguarding policies of the Church of England and the diocese of Chichester.

All staff and volunteers working with children must have a DBS criminal records check and attend regular church and diocese safeguarding training events. Our Parish Safeguarding Officer is Sue Griffiths who attends the church regularly and can be contacted about any child protection issues.

If you have any concerns or questions to do with safeguarding in general please contact Sue Griffiths, the Vicar, Revd Will Kemp, or our Youth Pastor, Dean Gargano.

We highly value our children and vulnerable adults at St Andrew’s and we do everything we can to ensure that they all have a wonderful, safe and supportive experience of church. All our staff and volunteers working with children undergo safeguarding training according to the Diocese of Chichester requirements, and they are all required to undergo a criminal records check (DBS) before having contact with children.

Our Parish Safeguarding Officer is Sue Griffiths. Sue is a teacher who currently works as a Well-being lead in a SEND school with over 30 years experience. She is very approachable and regularly attends our 11am Sunday service. Do contact Sue if you have any concerns about the safety of children or vulnerable adults at St Andrew’s. Her phone number is 07871 172600, or email Sue Griffiths

If it is not possible to contact Sue, please contact any of our Safeguarding team who are:

Revd Will Kemp (Vicar) or Dean Gargano (Youth Pastor).

If you are a child and you need to talk to someone about things that are happening to you that you don’t like, please click on this link which takes you the Childline website, or telephone Childline on 0800 1111. Down the Childline ‘For Me App’ here. Another helpful website to look at is Kidscape.

If you are an adult and you need to access support about something that is happening to you, please click on this link to find out how you can do that. Scroll down to find links to various support organisations for you to contact.

If you need to contact the Diocesan Safeguarding Team, please click on this link

If you need to report a safeguarding concern to the statutory authorities in Sussex, please click on this link, click on the option on the left that most describes the situation you are concerned about, and follow the advice and further links you find there. Please remember to contact the Diocesan Safeguarding Team as well once you have contacted the statutory authorities.