The Diocese of Wollongong (DoW) Working with Children Check (WWCC) Policy is a resource for persons who are responsible for implementing the WWCC legislation in parishes and ministries in the DoW. The Policy has an accompanying DoW WWCC Practice Note (see below for more information and to download).
This policy has been particularly developed to assist parishes and ministries within DoW to ensure that any volunteers and employees engaging in child-related work have verified WWCC Clearances prior to their commencement work with parish or diocesan ministries.
The policy provides details around:
what is child-related work
who is deemed to require a WWCC per legislative requirements
The policy also outlines the basic requirements under the WWCC Scheme, which include:
The Diocese of Wollongong (DoW) Working with Children Check (WWCC) Practice Note is an accompanying document to the DoW Working with Children Check Policy. This Practice Note is a resource to provide practical assistance to persons who are responsible for implementing the WWCC legislation in parishes and ministries in the DoW. It provides details around the following internal DoW processes and procedures that are followed in regards to the administration of the WWCC:
Over Friday 31 August and Saturday 1 September 2018, approximately 600 people from the Dioceses of Parramatta and Wollongong, together with many members of religious congregations and several other dioceses, attended one of two forums regarding Creating a safe Church from within.
The forums, with Fr Hans Zollner SJ as key note speaker, aimed to foster discussion and engagement amongst participants about the response of the Catholic Church to child sexual abuse, and more broadly to consider issues relating to the operation of power within the Catholic Church. The discussions particularly focused on responses to survivors and measures that could be taken to ensure child safety. The forums were facilitated by Ms Susan Pascoe AM.
This report written by Kate Temby summarises the key presentations made on each day, and provides an outline of what participants identified as the key theoretical and practical changes necessary to make Catholic organisations child-safe. As well as drawing on the key note presentations, this report draws on the question and answer sessions following each presentation, the presentation of the results of table discussions, the posters created by each table and the feedback forms.
This report has also been provided to the Implementation Advisory Group which has been established to monitor the response to the findings and recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse; and to Catholic Professional Standards Limited.
In December 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published its final report, following separate reports on Working with Children Checks (August 2015), Redress and Civil Litigation (September 2015), and Criminal Justice (August 2017), as well as numerous case study reports. Two case study reports—Case Study 43 (Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle) and Case Study 44 (dioceses of Armidale and Parramatta/Fr Farrell)—are yet to be published because of ongoing criminal proceedings.
In addition, some material throughout the reports of Case Study 28 (Ballarat), Case Study 35 (Archdiocese of Melbourne) and the final report, has been redacted for the same reason. It will be up to the government to publish unredacted versions of these reports after relevant criminal proceedings are concluded. The final report contains a preface and executive summary plus 17 other volumes—each devoted to a particular topic. Volume 16 is specifically devoted to religious institutions, including the Catholic Church, and is 2,524 pages long. The final report contains 189 recommendations, of which 21 recommendations are directed specifically at the Catholic Church, nine are directed to other specific religious organisations, and 27 are directed to all religious institutions in Australia. The Working with Children Checks report contains 36 recommendations, the Criminal Justice report contains 85 recommendations and the Redress and Civil Litigation report a further 99 recommendations.
There are numerous recommendations covering various issues that are directed at the Catholic Church, religious organisations and religious institutions in Australia. The Royal Commission conducted 8,000 private sessions with survivors of institutional child sexual abuse and, with the consent of the survivors concerned, has published summaries of approximately 4,000 survivor narratives on its website, of which 1,316 reference the Catholic Church.
Integrity in Our Common Mission is the National Code of Conduct for those exercising pastoral ministry in dioceses of the Catholic Church in Australia. This document combines the key principles from the two previous national documents, Integrity in Ministry and Integrity in the Service of the Church, and gives consideration to best practice approaches to safe ministry. These two documents are now superseded by Integrity in Our Common Mission which now becomes the foundational conduct document for anyone ministering or working in the Church, whether that be in a paid or voluntary capacity, clergy, religious or lay person.
The Royal Commission has recommended that all organisations that have any contact with children must be compliant with 10 National Child Safe Standards (the Standards) as outlined in Volume 6, Making Institutions Child Safe. The Standards are a benchmark against which organisations can assess their child safe capacity and set performance targets for a best practice approach to child safety. The Standards are interrelated and work together to articulate a holistic approach to child safety. There are necessary overlaps between the Standards and they can be implemented alongside other standards.
Account means the account held at your financial institution from which we are authorised to arrange for funds to be debited.
Agreement means this Direct Debit Request Service Agreement between you and us, including the direct debit request.
Business day means a day other than a Saturday or a Sunday or a listed public holiday.
Debit day means the day that payment is due.
Debit payment means a particular transaction where a debit is made, according to your direct debit request.
Direct debit request means the Direct Debit Request between us and you.
Us and we and our means the Catholic Development Fund.
You means the customer(s) who signed the direct debit request. Your financial institution is the financial institution where you hold the account that you have authorised us to arrange to debit.
Debiting your account
By submitting a direct debit request, you have authorised us to arrange for funds to be debited from your account according to the agreement we have with you.
We will only arrange for funds to be debited from your account:
As authorised in the direct debit request; if the debit day falls on a day that is not a business day, we may direct your financial institution to debit your account on the following or previous business day. If you are unsure about which day your account has or will be debited, please check with your financial
Changes by you
If you wish to stop or defer a debit payment you must write to us at least 5 business days before the next debit day.
This notice should be given to us in the first instance.
Your obligations
It is your responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient clear funds available in your account to allow a debit payment to be made.
If there are insufficient clear funds available in your account to meet a debit payment:
you or your account may be charged a fee and/or interest by your financial institution;
you or your account may be charged a fee to reimburse us for charges we have incurred for the failed transaction;
you must arrange for the payment to be made by another method
Please check your account statement to verify that the amounts debited from your account are correct.
Dispute
If you believe that there has been an error in debiting your account you should call us on (02) 4222 2444 and confirm the details in writing with us as soon as possible so that we can resolve your query quickly.
Accounts
You should check:
with your financial institution whether direct debiting is available from your accounts offered by financial
your account details which you have provided to us are correct by checking them against a recent account statement; and
with your financial institution before completing the direct debit request if you have any queries about how to complete the direct debit
Warning: if the account number you have quoted is incorrect, you may be charged a fee to reimburse our costs in correcting any deductions from:
an account you do not have authority to operate; or
an account you do not
Confidentiality
We will keep any information (including your account details) in your direct debit request confidential.
We will make reasonable efforts to keep any such information that we have about you secure and to ensure that any of our employees or agents who have access to information about you, do not make any unauthorised use, modification, reproduction or disclosure of that information.
However, we may use your contact details to provide information about the fund. Should you wish this not to be the case, please advise the fund in writing.
Disclosure statement
The Catholic Development Fund, Diocese of Wollongong (the Fund) is required by law to make the following disclosure: The Fund is not prudentially supervised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority nor has it been examined or approved by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission. An investor in the Fund will not receive the benefit of the financial claims scheme or the depositor protection provisions in the Banking Act 1959 (Cth). Investments in the Fund are intended to be a means for investors to support the charitable, religious and education works of the Diocese of Wollongong and for whom the consideration of profit are not of primary relevance in the investment decision. The investments that the Fund offers are not subject to the usual protections for investors under the Corporations Act (Cth) or regulation by Australian Securities and Investments Commission. Investors may be unable to get some or all of their money back when the investor expects or at all and any investment of the Fund are not comparable to investments with banks, finance companies or fund managers. The Fund’s identification statement may be viewed at www.cdfwollongong.org.au or by contacting the Fund. The Fund does not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence.
Our diocesan logo is theologically rich and very succinct. As a hand, it depicts our mission as a diocese and as individuals within the diocese, of bearing (bringing, carrying) Christ’s love to one another and to the world around us. In this, we are the hand of Jesus Christ, and we are offering ourselves to him so that he might work through us.
We can be the bearers of his love only as a response to his call and in the strength of his grace. We are reminded of this in two ways—through the symbol of the dove (the Holy Spirit) also present in the logo, and by the incorporation of the cross that segments the logo. The presence of the cross is a reminder that bearing the love of Christ will inevitably cost us if we live it authentically. However, in the way that the Cross is the portent of redemption and life—an echo of the tree of life in the book of Genesis—so becoming bearers of the love of Christ will also bring us to life.
The four fingers of the hand also represent the four regions of our diocese. The first is bluerepresenting the beautiful water of the Shoalhaven. The second is a blue and green combination representing the waters and escarpment of the Illawarra. The third is greendepicting the hills and plains of the Macarthur. The fourth is dark green illustrating the forests of the Southern Highlands.
