Anglican church sets up Parish Recovery Team to support abuse survivors, by Liz Farquhar, ABC News (May 17, 2016)

Newcastle's Anglican church says it has developed a long-term framework to help survivors of child sexual abuse tell their stories and recover.Decades of abuse within the church will be investigated at a two-week public hearing of the Royal Commission in Newcastle, starting in August.

The ABC has previously reported that several alleged paedophile rings are being investigated by police and the Royal Commission.

Dead priest Peter Rushton, acknowledged by the Anglican diocese as a paedophile, is a focus of the police and Royal Commission probes.

Six months ago the diocese established a special Parish Recovery Team, made up of 12 facilitators, to listen to victims of clergy abuse and help people access professional support.

The team is led by two people from outside the Anglican church with experience in counselling, and includes 10 others from within the church.

Newcastle diocese assistant bishop Peter Stuart said the team had been modelled on the experience of other dioceses in Australia and overseas.

"So we wanted to know what works and what doesn't work, sizes of meetings, timing of meetings, so we've tried to go far and wide, drawing from information in the United States and Canada, as well as Australian experience," he said.

"The communities where this has happened have spoken very warmly of the experience and it's made a difference for them."

We're anticipating a hearing of the Royal Commission that will look at us closely and deeply and we recognise there will be information that comes out which will tell us and tell the community where we could have done better.

Assistant Bishop, Peter Stuart

Bishop Stuart said the Parish Recovery Team was just one part of the local response to ensure abuse survivors could tell their stories and be heard.

"We knew from other places that having a team go in was a useful thing," he said.

"Our experience has been that it's enabled people to speak in a way that they mightn't otherwise have spoken, so our initial feedback is that this has been a good thing to do."

He said the diocese intended for the Parish Recovery Team to continue in the long term.

"On the whole, the Anglican diocese at the moment feels a deep sense of shame and regret about what occurred in its midst in the past," Bishop Stuart said.

"We're very alert to the fact that people who should have been cared for, weren't, and we should have done better.

"We're anticipating a hearing of the Royal Commission that will look at us closely and deeply and we recognise there will be information that comes out which will tell us and tell the community where we could have done better.

"We're putting a number of measures in place and have done for over a decade and we continue to learn from that. The Parish Recovery Team is another part of that work."

The Anglican diocese admits it has not sought any advice from the Hunter Valley's Catholic church, which has been dealing with the fallout from high-profile abuse cases involving local priests for years.

Bob O'Toole is the spokesman for the survivors' support group Clergy Abuse Network and said a lot could have been learned from the Catholic diocese's Insights Program, which aimed to address the collective harm done by clergy abuse.

Mr O'Toole said he hoped the Anglican Parish Recovery Team did a better job in helping survivors and the church community as a whole.

"I would hope the Anglican Parish Recovery Team has more success; I found with the Catholic Insights team, the sessions held were not terribly well attended," he said.

"The community often don't want to know about these things, and that makes it doubly difficult.

"I believe that it's a necessary thing, and I'd like to see the worshipping community kept together, but I think they need to be informed, or inform themselves.

"I think it would be a good idea if they did speak to the Insights team from the Catholic community just to understand better how people react to these things."

If this story raises issues or concerns you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, the NSW Police on 1800 333 000, or the Diocesan Director of Professional Standards on 1800 774 945.