Child Protection Policy:
This Child Protection Best Practice Standard aims to protect children as well as staff and volunteers. It applies information obtained about abuse or risk of abuse in any form including verbal, written and electronic. For the purposes of this Standard, a child is a person under the age of 18 who is not now married and has never been married. Also for the purposes of this Standard, a client is defined as any person utilising RCC services. Child Protection policy.
Accountability in the Rape Crisis Sector:
Rape Crisis Centres exist to create a better world. We operate and meet the needs of survivors of sexual violence in difficult and demanding conditions, and generally within severe budget constraints.
The growing legislative and regulatory environment governing charities is welcomed, and we look forward to increased public accountability with the establishment of the new Charities Regulator promised for next year.
The relevant pay scales for the majority of the RCC and RCNI staff are Social Care Manager, Professionally Qualified Social Worker, Counsellor/Therapist – National Counselling Service, Clerical Grades IV and V and the Social Care Worker scale. Link
Some important facts about salaries and governance in the Rape Crisis Sector.
- Pay and conditions within the sector were standardised to appropriate HSE pay scales in 2008.
- The highest scale for which a few RCNI member RCC CEOs qualify is the Social Care Manager Scale. The maximum full-time annual salary on that scale was €65,000 in 2008. For a CEO who started more recently, the maximum point on that salary scale is now €61,000.
- RCNI member Rape Crisis Centres have service level agreements they sign each year with Tusla – their main government funder.
- HSE/Tusla funding cuts to RCNI member RCCs ranged from 7% to 31% between 2009 and 2012. Staff pay has been frozen and in some cases decreased.
- Funding cuts from 2008 – 2014 as researched by independent researcher Julien Mercille
- Tusla cut RCNI core funding in its entirety in q2 2015, amounting to a 70% cut in overall funding for RCNI, while maintaining RCC funding ostensibly level in 2015 and 2016. However, RCNI services to RCCs have not been replaced meanings the RCNI cut has a doubling impact as it is effectively now being carried by RCCs with no added resources. Standards of service, previously developed collectively by the membership through RCNI, are becoming increasingly ad hoc with significant duplication and redundancy being introduced across the sector.
- All RCNI member RCCs are registered charities and companies limited by guarantee.
* Please note that Carlow and South Leinster and Kilkenny operate as separate Rape Crisis Centres.
They all are in compliance with the requirements of the Companies Registration Office, including filing annual accounts with the Companies Registration Office.
