Salvation Army Putting Abuse Victims First, Not Reputation: Commissioner

World Today
February 10, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2013/s3941366.htm

ELEANOR HALL: Now to the Royal Commission into Child Abuse, where one of the Salvation Army's most senior leaders told the inquiry this morning that the organisation had received more than 150 abuse complaints, mostly over the last decade.

Commissioner James Condon's evidence follows two weeks of public hearings which the Salvation Army conceded have shamed the organisation. Today he told the inquiry that the Salvation Army is no longer focused on protecting its reputation but on putting victims first.

Emily Bourke has been covering the inquiry and joins us now. Emily, is commissioner Condon the most senior Salvation Army witness to appear at the inquiry?

EMILY BOURKE: He certainly is. Commissioner James Condon has been serving with the Salvation Army for more than 40 years, and he was appointed to the Commander post in 2011.

He's revealed today that, over the past decade, there's been a transformation in the way the organisation handles complaints. Nowadays, victims are treated warmly, their stories are believed and respected - and this is in stark contrast to the policy of the 1990s, which was to acknowledge the abuse but not to apologise to victims and not to pay any compensation claims had been proved in court.

Now, James Condon told the inquiry that the organisation has received 157 complaints; 133 people have gone through the process and received an ex gratia payment, an apology and counselling costs over the last 10 years. Here's a bit of what he had to say.

JAMES CONDON: Our territory has, for some 10 years now, adopted a restorative justice approach to assist people who come to us with complaints of sexual abuse and other mistreatment.

Recently we have been trialling a new initiative where a final restorative justice conference is held with the survivor, and one of the two most senior leaders of the Salvation Army. We've called our policy 'People First'- first because the priority is the survivor, not the protection of the Salvation Army.

In brief outline, this approach means we invite all who were harmed to get in touch with us.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Salvation Army commissioner James Condon at the inquiry this morning. Emily, he's talking about a new initiative. Was he quizzed on the extent to which the culture within the organisation has changed?

EMILY BOURKE: Well, James Condon has pointed to a whole lot of cultural factors that prevented the Salvation Army and the managers of the boys homes back 20, 30 years ago from properly dealing with child sexual abuse in all of its dimensions - that is, the complaints from children at the time, allegations from victims many years later, and how it handled perpetrators within the organisation.

The bottom line was that complaints weren't handled well, if at all, and that's because of a myriad of shortcomings.

He also talked about the managers of boys home being autonomous with little accountability; perpetrators who were also in charge of the homes were rarely questioned. They weren't brought to account for their actions; rarely disciplined or even reprimanded, even referred to police.

Now, commissioner Condon written policies were scant, even for how to deal with child sexual abuse.

JAMES CONDON: Nor was there training for the staff, at least not until the 70s. Young men were appointed to the homes without any kind of selection process or background checks we would do today.

On arrival they were put to work with no training, and there were no staff meetings or anything of that kind, where issues could be raised or discussion held about how things could be improved.

There is no real excuse for this. Record keeping with respect to the boys' files, the condition at the time, visits monitoring, staff files and other materials which would be expected based on today's standards either were simply not taken, or through the effusion of time, a number have not been kept in what was seen to be disciplinary archiving and document managed processes, or lack thereof.

With respect to the records that were made, I know of no instances where the Salvation Army destroyed records relating to any of its boys' homes in order to conceal any wrongdoing. There was a serious failure on our part; we ought to have instituted policies for the preservation of children's records. I know from reading comments by care-leavers and in reports that this is a very significant source of pain for them.