Sisters of Mercy Parramatta 100% compliant in Safeguarding Audit
The Sisters of Mercy Parramatta recently participated in an audit conducted by Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd and were pleased to be deemed 100% compliant with the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards.
Date Posted:
03-May-2023
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The Press Release from Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd can be seen below this paragraph. Within the Press Release are links to the Full Audit Report for the Sisters of Mercy Parramatta. You may also like to visit our Safeguarding Page to view our Safeguarding Commitment Statement and key Safeguarding Policies, Procedures and Code of Conduct.
Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd Press Release 13th April 2023
"Full marks for Sisters of St John of God and Sisters of Mercy Parramatta in first NCSS Audits for 2023.
Australian Catholic Safeguarding Ltd (ACSL) has this week published safeguarding audit reports for two orders of religious women, the Sisters of St. John of God and Sisters of Mercy Parramatta.
The safeguarding audits, conducted by ACSL, assessed the progress of both entities in implementing the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards (NCSS), a framework for the safety and protection of children and adults at risk in Catholic organisations.
Sisters of Mercy Parramatta
The second audit report published by ACSL this week is Sisters of Mercy Parramatta’s audit report.
One of Sisters of Mercy Parramatta’s major ministries is an Art and Family Therapy Program which involves contact with children. An assessment of safeguarding practices in this ministry was included in the Sisters’ NCSS audit, which measured progress in implementing the child-focused components of the NCSS.
Dr Stephens said that the audit team found a deep commitment to child safeguarding evident in the Sisters’ child safeguarding framework. Sisters of Mercy Parramatta received a 100 per cent compliance score, with five recommendations for further improvement provided by ACSL’s audit team.
“Sisters of Mercy Parramatta have done an excellent job in ensuring that the children, families and carers who access their service are aware of their rights to feel safe and be safe. They’ve also put substantial work into their human resource practices to ensure they are stringent in their approach to child safety.”
“As with all audits we conduct, our audit process with the Sisters included a final meeting where we discussed areas for improvement and agreed on time frames for action, so over the next 12 months we will be able to check in with the Sisters to track their response to our recommendations,” Dr Stephens said.
Sisters of Mercy Parramatta’s audit report is available on ACSL’s website."
ACSL’s risk-based audit and review framework works to assess practical safeguarding risks for individual entities. The framework, centred on the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards (NCSS), considers the mission activity of the entity, the context in which it operates, and its current membership. This means that entities who undergo a self-assessment, review or audit are assessed against the NCSS criteria and indicators that directly relate to them. Entities commit to a three-year cycle for review/audit to support continuous improvement and integrate new legislative requirements and emerging best practice.
ACSL is working with Australian Catholic Church entities to reach the goal of having all Catholic entities audited or reviewed against the NCSS by 2025. Australian Catholic entities have the choice of engaging ACSL as an auditor or selecting from a range of audit providers on the newly established NCSS External Auditor Register.