CCPAS Press Release

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23 September 2008

CCPAS HEAD INTERVIEWED BY ESTHER RANTZEN ON CHILD PROTECTION FOR PRIME TIME TERRESTRIALTELEVISION

“CCPAS checks find on average six people a week  who should not be working with children”

David Pearson, Executive Director of The Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS), one of the UK’s leading experts in advising and training Christian and secular organisations in child protection practices, will be interviewed by children’s campaigner and celebrity Esther Rantzen on prime time terrestrial TV early next month.

The programme will focus mainly upon some of the absurdities that may occur in child protection, such as teachers in hot weather refusing to apply sun tan lotion to the children in their care for fear of attracting abuse allegations.  CCPAS is recognised for its ‘good sense’ approach in these and other areas.
 
The keynote interview will be broadcast on Tonight with Trevor McDonald on Friday 3rd October at 8pm, ITV becoming interested in the work of CCPAS through their range of ‘good sense’ publications for children and youth workers, in particular Help – I want to work safely with Children & Young People.*

 Part of the filming for the programme took place at, St Peter’s, near Swanley, Kent – where three of CCPAS’s staff regularly help with the children’s work, Kidz Klub and which is close to CCPAS’s offices. The interview took place during a Kidz Klub activity in the church, which was used as an illustration of some of the good work that churches do with children, using guidelines which are both sensible and effective. Ms Rantzen chatted with some of the children, who are of infant and junior school age, and then joined them in singing one of the songs – ‘Let Your Light Shine’. 

Barbara Ball, CCPAS Disclosure Service Manager and one of the leaders of the children’s work at St Peter’s, remarked afterwards that Ms Rantzen: “was particularly impressed with the way our workers interacted with the children and that we weren’t afraid of appropriate physical contact with them”.

David Pearson said: “The programme is important because it will give us an excellent platform in order to communicate with a much broader audience than normal the scope and the significance of our work. Many will not know, for example, that CCPAS is one of the largest agencies in the country carrying out criminal records checks, not only for Christian churches but other organisations and faith groups, too. 
“We carry out about 25,000 of these checks every year and one of the main points we make in the broadcast is that - every week - we discover approximately half a dozen people who must be prevented from working with children”.

Media Enquiries:                  Iain Taylor
Taylor Communications
01732 461060 or 07979 914217

NOTES TO EDITORS:

*See http://www.ccpas.co.uk/Documents/Help%20-%20work%20safeley.pdf  for publication Help – I want to work safely with Children & Young People.*

CCPAS is an independent Christian charity providing professional child protection advice and support across church denominations and organisations throughout the UK. 
CCPAS was established in 1977. It assists churches, organisations, social services and other child care agencies as well as individual children and families by: 

• helping churches and other organisations adopt safe practice in order to protect children from abuse – and youth workers from the possibility of false allegations
• advising on individual cases, giving ongoing help to leaders and others.
• training across the UK and providing “in-house” training and other resources
• acting as external consultants to denominational/organisational child protection advisors
• counselling individual adults or children about past or present abuse. 

For more information, please see www.ccpas.co.uk