Section outline

  • Nine units | Approximately ninety minutes | Followed by the Module 5 quiz

    What this module is about

    This is the module you will one day need at short notice, and it is written so that its core can be recalled under pressure. It is also the module most closely reproduced in the companion workbook, because a first response happens in a corridor or a car park or a doorway, not at a desk with a course open.

    Everything here fits into one sequence: receive, make safe, record, refer, support — with the understanding that making someone safe can interrupt everything else at any point. What is not in the sequence is investigation, and its absence is the single most important thing in the module.

    By the end of this module, you will be able to:

    • Recognise what a disclosure actually looks like: badly timed, partial, sometimes at one remove.
    • Hold the five intentions of a first response, including leaving the silence alone.
    • Say what should be said, and avoid the sentences that end a disclosure permanently.
    • Ask the minimum needed to establish danger and pass it on accurately, and nothing beyond.
    • Act on immediate safety without waiting for a returned call or for certainty.
    • Answer a request for secrecy honestly, before the disclosure rather than after.
    • Write a record that separates fact, allegation, opinion, and action, and carries no credibility judgement.
    • Preserve rather than pursue: delete nothing, forward nothing, bring nobody together.
    • Get support for yourself afterwards, and keep the pastoral relationship intact.

    Sources

    Source tables identify the material that supports the teaching. Where a table uses the key, ✓ means that teaching drawn from the source forms part of the assessed content; ✕ identifies optional further reading, which is not assessed directly. You are not required to read every linked external resource in full.

    Assessment

    Twenty questions drawn at random from a bank of sixty, twenty-five minutes, eighty per cent to pass, two attempts, highest grade. It covers this module only.

    Before you move on

    • All nine units marked as done.
    • Your opening sentence, your confidentiality sentence, and your statutory numbers written into the companion workbook.
    • The Module 5 quiz passed.
    • Unit 5.1 — What a disclosure actually looks like Page
    • Unit 5.2 — The first-response posture Page
    • Unit 5.3 — What to say, and what never to say Page
    • Unit 5.4 — Do not investigate: the minimum-questions rule Page
    • Unit 5.5 — Immediate safety in the first hour Page
    • Unit 5.6 — “Please don’t tell anyone”: handling requests for secrecy Page
    • Unit 5.7 — Writing the record Page
    • Unit 5.8 — Preserving evidence and avoiding contamination Page
    • Unit 5.9 — Afterwards: supervision, support, and your own wellbeing Page
    • Module 5 Quiz — Response