ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the welfare provision by faith-based organizations and explores some of the ways in which certain faith-based organizations have been revealed to have engaged in abusive practices, often sustained over long periods of time. It explores to identify some responses by faith-based organizations to these issues and the challenges for contemporary social workers in faith-based organizations in light of public recognition that faith-based organizations may be deeply flawed. The chapter considers the evidence from official inquiries in Ireland and Scotland. Perhaps the most comprehensive inquiry into abusive behaviour in religious institutions is the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA), more commonly known as the Ryan Report, commissioned by the Irish government in 1999 to investigate the extent and effects of abuse on children from 1936 onward. Apologies and compensation has been paid to some who were abused by religious institutions during childhood.
