Consent remains real
Appeals to philosophy, community or tradition never turn pressure into consent. No leader or participant acquires rights over another person’s body, home, relationships, money or private information.
Safeguarding contact:
[email protected]
.
This is the current direct safeguarding contact. An external independent
reporting route will be published alongside it when one is appointed.
Core commitments
The standards apply especially when it is inconvenient.
Children are protected first
Children must not keep adult secrets, meet leaders privately without appropriate safeguards, make declarations of belief or protect the reputation of the group.
Reporting is not betrayal
Where law, risk or professional duty requires outside reporting, matters should be referred to the appropriate authorities. Internal handling must not replace criminal, medical or safeguarding processes.
Leaving is allowed
People may step back or leave without threat, harassment, surveillance, spiritual intimidation or organised shunning.
Sexual boundaries are not spiritual exceptions
No claimed insight, experience or authority may be used to obtain sexual access, blur professional boundaries or disguise exploitation as personal development or special connection.
Financial boundaries matter
Leaders must not pressure people into gifts, loans, purchases or financial dependence. Money and authority require transparent separation and oversight.
Confidentiality has limits
Privacy should be respected, but confidentiality cannot be promised where there is immediate danger, legal obligation or a safeguarding duty to act.
Leaders remain accountable
Position does not create immunity. Complaints about leaders require routes that do not depend solely on the accused person's colleagues, friends or direct authority.
If something has happened
Do not begin with protecting the institution.
If someone may be in immediate danger, contact the emergency or statutory services where you live. Internal community procedures must never obstruct reports of crime.
Safety is not conditional on reconciliation.
A harmed person is not required to meet, forgive, resume contact with or reconcile with the person who harmed them. Any later restorative process must be voluntary, safe and appropriate.
- Prioritise immediate safety and medical needs.
- Record essential facts accurately without conducting amateur interrogation.
- Use the relevant legal, professional or statutory safeguarding route where required.
- Prevent retaliation, pressure, destruction of evidence or attempts to manage reputation.
- Offer practical support without taking control away from the affected person.
- Review any institutional failure that allowed risk or harm to continue.
Spiritual abuse
Any set of ideas can be used to control people. We need to name that risk.
Claims of special access
“I know what the Greater Consciousness wants for you” does not create authority over another person.
Threats disguised as guidance
Misfortune, death, illness or loss must not be used as spiritual leverage to secure obedience.
Dependency presented as commitment
Healthy participation should increase agency, not make someone afraid to think, decide or live independently.
Complaints and oversight
A real safeguarding system needs routes, records and independence.
As the Continuance develops organisationally, safeguarding procedures should identify named reporting routes, external escalation options, conflict-of-interest rules, record retention, referral thresholds, training requirements and independent review where appropriate. Those details should be published rather than left to custom.
The current direct safeguarding contact is [email protected] . As the organisation develops, external or independent reporting routes and jurisdiction-specific procedures can be added alongside that address and published clearly.