Safe Families for Children, which aims to prevent children from needlessly having to go into the care system, has been working in England since 2013.

Keith Danby, chief executive of the charity said in a statement: “The increase in children becoming ‘looked after’ is recognised as a growing crisis by many in the care sector. It’s generally agreed that some urgent action must be taken.

“We believe that volunteer support from the community can go a long way to stabilising family situations in times of acute stress or dysfunction. We’ve seen so many families benefit from having community support and respite when they are at their wits end.”

Government statistics reveal that as of March 2017, over 25 per cent of children in need were assessed as being in a family in acute stress or dysfunction.

The charity recruits and trains volunteers who support children and their parents/carers.

Rev Amanda Digman of The Churches of St John the Baptist, Carlton and Colwick said: “We decided to get involved with Safe Families because we live in an area where there are people with needs. It’s difficult to know how to access those who need the help and Safe Families helps us find them.
 
“Although I’m really busy, I think if we can all help and chip in a little bit we can work together to make society better. Just to help people to move forward and not be stuck. We’ve all been in a…

John Kutsko, executive director of the Society of Biblical Literature, said he was worried the Christian organisation was limiting freedom of expression on the internet by determining who can use the domain and who cannot.

“The internet is public space,” he said to Religion News Service.

“It’s our understanding that .bible was registered to be public space and not have the kind of restrictions that you would expect of a domain that was proprietary or brand-oriented.”

Competing with domains ending with “.com”, “.org” and others, the ABS has been able to attract at least 1,190 customers to acquire the .bible domain.

Religion News Service reported that ABS had recently enacted a policy prohibiting customers wanting to use the .bible domain from posting any material that “espouses or promotes a religious, secular, or other worldview that is antithetical to New Testament principles, including but not limited to the promotion of a non-Christian religion or set of religious beliefs.”

The ABS has been managing the domain since 2016.

A short statement issued by the ABS said it had met with “complaining parties” but said that its policies are “in complete compliance” with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), which manages internet resources and coordinates its domain name system.