Archives

Award in Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults

Safeguarding Others
MQF

The Pastoral Formation Institute is licensed by MFHEA
(Licence #: 2013-FHI-023) as a Further and Higher Educational Institute. The Award in Safeguarding Children & Vulnerable Adults is accredited at EQF/MQF Level 4, as Further Education Programme.

This short course will assist employees and volunteers who work with children and vulnerable adults or handle their data, to recognise the key principles of safeguarding and learn to create a safe environment for children, young people, and vulnerable adults.

The intended learning outcomes:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  1. familiarise themselves with safeguarding policies
  2. understand the legal obligations with child abuse
  3. identify signs and symptoms of abuse
  4. know the disclosures of abuse
  5. identify the principles of safeguarding
  6. practice professional boundaries
  7. know their legal obligations related to the Protection of Minors (Registration) Act (2011) and the Minors Protection Act (2019)
  8. learn about the different types of abuse and poor practice
  9. learn a standard response to a disclosure of abuse
  10. be able to recognise signs of abuse
  11. identify the actions to take if you have a concern and who can help

If you are a registered pastoral worker with the Archdiocese of Malta, you can benefit from a 33%  discount on this course. Start your application process as a pastoral worker on parrocci.knisja.mt/pfi

  • Employees who work with children and vulnerable adults
  • Employees who handle children and vulnerable adults` data
  • Volunteers who work with children and vulnerable adults
  • Volunteers who handle children and vulnerable adults` data.

CodeMode of DeliveryValue
SGC4001Blended Learning1 ECTS

The course is delivered over 5 contact hours. These 5 hours are delivered over two sessions:

  1. 3 hours – In person session (Face-to-Face Learning)
  2. 2 hours – recorded material which can be accessed on the PFI`s Moodle Portal (Blended Learning)

Students will also be given additional reading material which they can read in their own time.

You may find all the dates in the Calendar section below.

Each course is delivered over two sessions; (a) 3-hour, in-person session and (b) 2 hours of recorded material which can be accessed on the PFI`s Moodle Portal.

February 2024
Lecturing Period
Mode of DeliveryDate & TimeVenue
In-person17th February 2024Archbishop`s Curia, Floriana
Recorded Material17th – 26th February 2024Recorded Videos on the VLE platform
Assessment Period:
AssessmentAvailable FromDue by
Short Multiple-Choice Online Exam26th February 2024Monday 4th March 2024
Reflective Journal26th February 2024Monday 26th March 2024

This course has three exit certificate options: 

  1. Certificate of Attendance

A Certificate of Attendance will be rewarded to students who have:

  • attended in-person session
  • watched all the recorded material
  • and did not submit any course assessments.
  1. Certificate of Participation 

A Certificate of Participation* will be rewarded to students who meet the attendance criteria and successfully conclude the course multiple choice test. (please check the calendar tab above for exam dates)

  1. Certificate of Achievement 

A Certificate of Achievement* is awarded to students who successfully concluded the course, that is;

  • meet the attendance criteria
  • sit and pass the short multiple-choice online exam (mentioned in point 2),
  • and also submit a written assessment

Click here to view the PFI`s Grading System

*To obtain a Certificate of Achievement or a Certificate of Participation, a student must; attend all the contact hours and successfully conclude the assessment/s.

EQF/MQF Level: Level 4

Accreditation Category: Further Education Programme

Total ECTS: 2 ECTS

Teaching Institutions: Safeguarding Commission together with Pastoral Formation Institute

Award Institution: Pastoral Formation Institute

MQF

The Pastoral Formation Institute is licensed by MFHEA
(Licence #: 2013-FHI-023) as a Further and Higher Educational Institute. The Award in Safeguarding Children & Vulnerable Adults is accredited at EQF/MQF Level 4, as Further Education Programme.

Qualifications: Every application will be considered on its individual merits. The Pastoral Formation Institute accepts a wide range of qualifications, and we always try to judge applications on the basis of academic potential. We do consider a very wide range of academic, vocational, and professional qualifications, as well as work and other appropriate experiences and skills.

Language: Primary level understanding of Maltese and English.

Digital: Knows how to access the internet and use a word processor.


For courses offered in face-to-face learning and Blended Learning, it is required that applicants reside in the Maltese Islands and use their Maltese address in their application form.

For further information regarding visa requirements, head to Identity Malta’s VISA requirement for third-country nationals.

Seminar: Safeguarding – Adults Working with Minors

  Ta' Mlit Pastoral Centre
Safeguarding Minors

This full-day seminar will assist all those who work with children and handle their data, to recognise the key principles of safeguarding and learn to create a safe environment for children. Throughout the seminar, participants will:

  • Obtain more awareness on the subject of safeguarding.
  • Gain knowledge on how to create healthier environments, especially with minors.
  • Be able to promote healthier relationships in pastoral work.
  • Discuss and draw concrete solutions to preventing abuse.

If you are a registered pastoral worker with the Archdiocese of Malta, you can benefit from a 25%  discount on this seminar. The course fee includes lunch. Start your application process as a pastoral worker on parrocci.knisja.mt/pfi

Adults working with minors, especially:

  • Individuals who assist in children’s mass/liturgy
  • Individuals involved in leadership of altar boy groups
  • Individuals involved in the leadership of parish commission for children
  • Individuals involved in the leadership of children’s choir
  • Individuals involved in catechism
Date & TimeSession Title
Saturday 18th November 2023 8:30 am – 2:30 pmSession 1: Introduction to Safeguarding
Session 2: Health Relationships and Safe Boundaries
Session 3: Way Forward

This seminar has three exit certificate options: 

Certificate of Attendance

A Certificate of Attendance will be awarded to students who have:

  • attended all contact hours

Certificate of Participation

A Certificate of Participation will be awarded to students who have:

  • attended all contact hours
  • and successfully completed short multiple-choice exam

Certificate of Achievement 

A Certificate of Achievement is awarded to students who have:

  • attended all contact hours
  • successfully completed short multiple choice exam
  • and submit a written assessment

Qualifications

The Pastoral Formation Institute accepts a wide range of academic, vocational, and professional qualifications as well as work and other appropriate experiences and skills.

Language Skills

Primary level understanding of Maltese and English is required.

Digital Skills

Ability to use the internet and use a word processor is required.

Every application will be considered on its individual merits and evaluated on the basis of academic potential.

Art and Faith: The Way of Beauty

The Allegory of the Triumph

“Christian art offers the believer a theme for reflection and acts as an aid to enter into contemplation in intense prayer, similar to a moment of catachesis…”

Pontifical Council for Culture, the ‘Via Pulchritudinis’, 2006, III.2C

Over time and across cultures, humans have always sought to express the ineffable – those phenomena and mysteries which, for centuries, have captivated man’s imagination.

What mysteries do their creations, in turn, conceal?

What may this incredible artistic heritage reveal about the evolution of human thought, belief, and the manner in which man related and reacted to the natural world and beyond?

Moreover, what insights, as Christians, may we attain and contemplate today, from a twenty-first-century perspective?

The course seeks to explore and address these questions by delving deeply into different forms of expression—religious or otherwise—and the myriad of ways these may be engaged with theologically.   

Course Aim:
  • to provide different tools to “read” into works of art and engage with them on a profound iconological, theological, philosophical, and cultural level; 
  • to re-evaluate the role of art and ritual within religious practice and experience; 
  • to present the story and evolution of art in relation to core Christian beliefs, dogmas and values; 
  • to hone observational and critical thinking skills in the encounter with different forms of art; 
  • to encourage the use of the imagination and the contemplation of art as a method of prayer; 
  • to gain confidence in approaching familiar or previously unknown artworks, reflecting upon them and bringing them into discourse among peers; 
Currently, enrolment is not open for this course. For further information contact us on [email protected]

People who wish to enrich their spirituality by learning how to read and meditate artworks

Introduction to the Course: Encounters with Beauty
Creation : Origins of Beauty

“When we contemplate with wonder the universe in all its grandeur and beauty, we must praise the whole Trinity.”

(St John Paul II, Catechesis).

With a particular emphasis on Genesis, we will explore ways in which ideas on art and beauty might emerge through a reflection on the first (and most recent) encounters of creation and humanity. 

Creation : The Matter of Beauty

In this lecture, we will seek to address questions on the relation between matter and beauty, on how matter may positively serve as a means of expressing and thinking about the divine.  

Spatial Encounters: Sacred and Secular

What do the terms ‘sacred’ and ‘space’ mean, and how do these meanings change when the terms are brought together? How are the senses and matter key players in identifying and animating sacred space? In this session, we will explore the origins and some of the earliest manifestations of sacred space. 

Spatial Encounters: Locations and Orientations 

How do sacred spaces interact with the landscapes in which they are located? What role do notions of design, geometry, cosmology, and technology, play in the construction and memorialisation of sacred spaces? Which parts of our domestic and communal spaces have the potential to participate in the sacred?  

Spatial Encounters: The Temple 

In this session, we will consider the Biblical roots to sacred space, the transition and cross-cultural adaptations in Judeo-Christian and Classical public, private and religious space.   

Origin, Matter and Spirit

Visit to St Agatha Catacombs, Rabat

Spatial Encounters: Adorning and Adoring 

What are the ways in which space could be prepared and adorned for the encounter with the divine? In this session, we will explore some early Christian and medieval sacred spaces, their architecture, and decoration as a reflection of the main beliefs and practices animating the encounter with the sacred.  

The Body: Embodying the Divine 

How can consider the human body as a category of analysis in the discourse on beauty? In this session, we will explore notions on how the body may be envisioned as a temple or as a sacred space.  

Sacred Space

Site Visit to St John`s Co-Cathedral

The Body: Becoming like the Divine

In this session, we will explore different ways of thinking about the relationship between icons and idols, particularly in light of Christian doctrine, apologetics, and theology. 

Violent Encounters: Worship and Destruction

In this session, we will address issues concerning iconoclastic reactions to the figurative representation of the divine and how violence and destruction may inform our notion of beauty, religious practice, and worship. A special focus will be given to Eastern Christianity, art, and architecture. 

Violent Encounters: Reconciling Beauty: the crucifix 

In this session, we will take a look at the central image, Eikon, of Christianity: the Crucified Christ, and how the portrayal of suffering—especially as expressed in Western religious imagery—may evoke a spirit of empathy and transformation in the beholder. 

Violent Encounters: Memory and Remembrance 

In this session we will consider the memorialisation of political violence through sacred (or pseudo-sacred) art, taking the city of Valletta as a departure point to reflect on the making of political, corporate, religious, and cultural identities.  

Violent Encounters

Visit Valletta Streets

Violent Encounters: Revelation of Beauty

In this conclusion, we will reflect on how the rhetoric of violence, as expressed through the arts, may afford a unique space to contemplate central Christian notions concerning redemption, salvation, fraternal and divine love.  

Half-day retreat with class suggestions, class presentations and group reflection  
Last Lecture: Class suggestion 
Session Format
  • Fourteen lectures on Tuesdays between 17:30 and 19:30 (28 hours) with audio-visual presentations, complemented by group discussions and sharing based on individual observation and contemplation.
  • Three Saturday Site Visits (9 hours) – in-person on site
  • Half-Day Seminar (5 hours)
Currently, enrolment is not open for this course. For further information contact us on [email protected]
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Introduction to the Course: Encounters with Beauty
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Creation: Origins of Beauty
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Creation: The Matter of Beauty 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Spatial Encounters: Sacred and Secular 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Spatial Encounters: Locations and Orientations 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Spatial Encounters: The Temple 
Saturday 10:00-13:00Origin, Matter, and Spirit: Site Visit – St Agatha Catacombs, Rabat
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Art as Sacrifice: sacrificial origins of artistic practice
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Spatial Encounters: Adorning and Adoring 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30The Body: Embodying the Divine
Saturday 10:00-13:00Sacred Space: Site Visit – St John’s Co-Cathedral 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30The Body: Becoming like the Divine
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Violent Encounters: Worship and Destruction 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Violent Encounters: Reconciling Beauty: the crucifix 
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Violent Encounters: Memory and Remembrance
Saturday 10:00-13:00Violence: Site Visit – Valletta Streets
Tuesday 17.30 – 19.30Violent Encounters: Revelation of Beauty
Saturday 9:00 –14:00Half-day retreat with class presentations and group reflection  

Assessment: 

  • (optional) a reflective journal, based on the prayerful contemplation of selected artworks; 
  • (compulsory): Based on a local work of art, sculpture or space, or an artistic work of their own making (literary/visual/audio-visual/music/film/etc), students will be asked to deliver a 15 to 20-minute class presentation on how the chosen work(s) might help “expand our gaze and ideas” on beauty, both in an aesthetic and theological sense.  While the presentation is intended to give the student an opportunity to elaborate further on one of the main themes touched upon in class, according to their own interests and artistic preference. It is also an opportunity to share ideas as well as receive feedback from peers. The students will also be encouraged to submit their work in written format (approx 2500 words). 

Final Award: Certificate in The way of Beauty: Discovering Faith through Art

Duration: One-year part-time course with two modules

Certification: A sealed Certificate after successful* completion of the course

To obtain a Certificate of Achievement a student must: attend a minimum of 70% of each module and Pass successfully the assignment

Every application will be considered on its individual merits. The Pastoral Formation Institute accepts a wide range of qualifications, and we always try to judge applications on the basis of academic potential. We do consider a very wide range of academic, vocational, and professional qualifications, as well as work and other appropriate experiences and skills.