Save the Children has admitted to significant failings in its own employment procedures after it emerged that a senior official worked at the charity for two or more decades before he had been fired over historic child safeguarding worries.
Rudolph von Bernuth, who held senior posts including that of international programmes manager, was at Save the Children from 1992-96 and 1997-2014 before he had been sacked for serious misconduct connected to past behaviour. He has since been a college guest lecturer in the US.
Save the Children reported that the allegations worried Von Bernuth’s behaviour before and during his employment from the union, but would not provide any specifics of the particular complaints that led to his death other than to say “serious concerns were raised regarding him”.
The UK Charity Commission informed the Guardian that his dismissal was connected to “historic child safeguarding worries”.
Save the Children also stated that as a result of the case it would explore the way that it dealt with promises of sexual misconduct and harassment. However, it would not explain whether there had been allegations of the nature made from Von Bernuth.
The charity said that it was “appalled at and denounce his behaviour prior to and throughout his job”, adding: “We are heartbroken at the pain he caused.”
Save the Children admitted that it had been “deeply concerned” at how it managed hiring procedures, but would not say whether it’d asked for a mention before hiring Von Bernuth.
The Guardian requested Save the Children to elaborate any knowledge of wrongdoing in different tasks but the charity denied.
Von Bernuth did not respond to repeated efforts to get him for comment.
The revelations contribute to important problems for the charity, together with staff demanding the removal of Sir Alan Parker as its international chairman over complaints of inappropriate behaviour by former executives. They think he should step down due to failures to handle the complaints from staff contrary to the charity’s former chief executive, Justin Forsyth, along with the former policy manager Brendan Cox, the widower of murdered MP Jo Cox.
Based on the way Von Bernuth’s job was managed the research said it will order an overview of all previous investigations, adding that there are a thorough inspection of the way that it looks at claims of sexual misconduct.
In a declaration, the US arm of the charity stated that “in a bid to have a fresh look at these issues” it’d requested the former chairman of the US securities and exchange commission, Mary Jo White, to research. It said the research would consider “the organisation’s present procedures for hiring and related labour practices and for addressing claims of sexual misconduct and harassment”.
Von Bernuth worked for Care International for 2 decades before joining Save the Children, where he was most recently the international programme manager based in London.
Care International told the Guardian which Von Bernuth resigned in May 1992 and that it had no records of proper sexual misconduct complaints. “Over 25 years have passed, and our documents do not indicate whether or not a mention was given [to Save Children] at that time,” it stated.
Von Bernuth is understood to have worked in the London office on secondment in the US division of the charity and also to have abandoned abruptly in 2014. 1 former staff member who requested to remain anonymous explained: “When he left, nobody had been told anything. He simply … disappeared.”
His case had been reported on the UK Charity Commission and he was not supplied with a mention upon leaving. He had been investigated, with information passed on to authorities in the Usa and the UK.
A spokesperson for the Charity Commission said: “Our documents from 2014 suggest that the charity Save the Children International made a significant incident report to us at March 2014, relating to a staff member and historic child safeguarding worries … we found that the person in question was suspended and later had his employment terminated from the charity.”
Since 2016, Von Bernuth has been the president of the board of directors to Hospice and Palliative Care of Oneida, Herkimer and Madison counties, New York. He’s also been a guest lecturer on humanitarian issues at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School. Neither organisation responded to requests for comment.
His public also says that he retired from Save the Children in 2015 and that the Canterbury School, a boarding and day school he attended in Connecticut, awarded him a distinguished alumni award this past year.
Save the Children is among a range of charities to be influenced by a catastrophe that has spanned the industry since Oxfam staff were accused of sexual misconduct in Haiti in 2011. Last week, even the heads of 22 aid businesses took the unprecedented step of apologising for the sector’s failure to tackle sexual abuse. They pledged to toughen protects against misconduct.
The letter, signed by the heads of ActionAid UK, Christian Aid, Cafod, Care International UK, in Addition to Oxfam, Save the Children and many others, stated: “We are truly sorry.”
source http://www.the-childrens-guide.com/save-children-official-for-child-safeguarding-concerns/
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