Guidance on preventing the bullying of LGBT pupils in Church of England schools ‘to offer the Christian message of love, joy and the celebration of our humanity without exception or exclusion’, was issued by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 13 November.
Valuing All God’s Children: Guidance for Church of England schools on challenging homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, is an update on 2014 guidance. At the time of writing, following links to it were problematic, as the CofE website reported ‘pages have been moved’ since a site relaunch.
Bullying is damaging
In a foreword to the guidance, Archbishop Welby writes: ‘All bullying, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic [HBT] bullying causes profound damage, leading to higher levels of mental health disorders, self-harm, depression and suicide… . We must avoid, at all costs, diminishing the dignity of any individual to a stereotype or a problem.’
