I left Durham on Wednesday

I left Durham on Wednesday carrying more than notes.

In Durham, I had the privilege of participating in the International Centre for Moral Injury conference at Durham University, where I spoke about power, survivor participation, moral injury, and recovery in the Church.

For those who might not be familiar with this concept, moral injury refers to the psychological harm caused when someone experiences or witnesses events that violate their deeply held values and beliefs. It is distinct from – though often sits alongside- responses to traumatic and adverse experiences, such as PTSD. For many individuals and groups, including war veterans, chaplains, patients, care-experienced people, and victims and survivors of abuse in Church and faith settings, this framing feels particularly significant: the harm is not only physical or psychological, but a profound betrayal by institutions that were supposed to care for others and be trustworthy.

What stays with me is the depth of the conversations.

At a time when safe spaces for deep dialogue and shared vulnerability feel increasingly rare, I found myself surrounded by people, researchers, practitioners, clinicians, who care deeply about making a difference in a world where moral injury seems to be on the rise. Again and again, I encountered a shared recognition: that moral injury is not abstract. It is lived, and it is felt in the body. It unsettles identity. It fractures the way individuals understand themselves, their work, and their place in society.

Often, this fracture does not come from outside alone. It emerges within the very systems people have committed themselves to, systems meant to heal, protect, serve, and hold meaning. When those systems fail, or when individuals feel unable to act in alignment with their values within them, something deeper than stress or burnout takes place.

Something moral is disrupted.

It is a complex and contested field. There are different definitions, frameworks, and languages for describing what is happening. And yet, one thing felt clear throughout the conference: the need to speak more openly about moral injury, to name it, to explore it, and to resist the silence that often surrounds it. I left Durham with gratitude to the organisers and colleagues whose presence and generosity made the experience more meaningful.

I also left Durham with hope that one day moral injury can be recognised in law in the UK.

Under UK safeguarding law, organisational abuse can already encompass many of the conditions that give rise to moral injury, even if the concept itself is not explicitly recognised. The Care Act 2014, whose statutory guidance focuses primarily on protecting adults with care and support needs from harm, defines organisational (or institutional) abuse in terms of poor or unsafe care practices, rigid or oppressive routines, neglect arising from systemic failure, cultures that prioritise the organisation over the person, and failures to respond appropriately to harm or complaints. These are not only operational or procedural failings; they are environments in which individuals (both those receiving care and those providing it) may experience profound ethical strain, including feelings of betrayal, constraint, and the erosion of moral agency.

In this sense, the conditions for moral injury are already present within the existing safeguarding framework. However, moral injury itself is not named as a distinct category of harm within the legislation. Recognising it more explicitly would not necessarily require a fundamental shift in the law, but rather a conceptual expansion, one that acknowledges the moral and relational impact of organisational abuse alongside its psychological and physical consequences, and that could deepen how safeguarding understands both harm and recovery.

I left Durham with a sense of care, humility and sadness, returning to a world where the right to be cared for, no matter who you are or the circumstances in which you live, is still questioned or dismissed. To be in conversation with those shaping this field – and with those carrying its lived realities – is both a privilege and a responsibility.

If there is one thread I carry forward, it is this: moral injury isolates, but conversation reconnects, and perhaps, in that reconnection, something of repair quietly begins.