News Releases

Diocese has already trained thousands to protect children

From The Catholic Spirit,
February 19, 2004 Vol. 8, No. 50

By Charissa M. Carroll
Head Staff Writer

For many years, the responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse has been largely left in the hands of children and their parents. But the entire community has a role to play in putting an end to the problem. Programs like Protecting God’s Children, which will ultimately be implemented in all schools and parishes in the diocese, train adults to ensure a safe environment for youth by learning how to intervene before sexual crimes can take place.

Launched last spring, the child protection program is only one component of the diocese’s comprehensive plan to guarantee the safety of children. Among the other steps taken are last year’s formation of the Office of Child and Youth Protection and the mandatory background checks and fingerprinting of clergy and Church volunteers or staff members who minister to children.

To date, more than 2,000 people in the diocese have gone through Protecting God’s Children training, including approximately 100 who attended sessions Feb. 9 in the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway.

Other sessions have also been held recently in several schools and parishes, such as a Feb. 13 seminar in St. Elizabeth School, Bernardsville, which was open not only to teachers and catechists in Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish, Bernardsville, but to all parishioners. This session was led by Mary Boyle, assistant superintendent, who serves as one of 70 facilitators in the diocese. Facilitators, who have been nominated by their pastors or department heads, have undergone extensive classroom and online training and will help to fully implement the program across the diocese.

According to Larry Nagle, director of the Office of Child and Youth Protection, this goal will hopefully be reached by the end of the year. He said his office is also working toward selecting a sexual abuse prevention program for all children in Catholic schools and religious education programs, which should also be in place by the end of 2004.

The goal of Protecting God’s Children is to educate adult leaders in the faith community, including priests, teachers, principals, youth ministers and directors of religious education, about the dangers of abuse, ways to prevent abuse and the methods for properly reporting suspicions of abuse.

The half-day awareness sessions in the pastoral center and the diocese’s schools and parishes are comprised of two videos featuring both sexual abuse victims and offenders, which are meant to demonstrate the nature and scope of the problem. In addition, small and large group discussions allow participants to explore questions raised by the films. By the end of the workshop, attendees are empowered and educated with five steps to help prevent child sexual abuse: Know the warning signs, control access, monitor all programs, be aware and communicate any concerns.

In her Feb. 9 presentations in the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Sharon Doty, who was chairperson of the consulting team that developed the national program, explained that child abusers seek to operate and abuse their power within nurturing, child-friendly environments where it is assumed that nobody would want to harm a child. Therefore, religious organizations of all faiths are an easy target, she said.

Protecting God’s Children implements safety mechanisms that send a message to all abusers and potential abusers that their behavior will not be tolerated.

Doty stressed the importance of keeping all children’s activities out in the open. "There is nothing, nothing, nothing we should be doing in ministering to children that can’t be observed," she said. Even when a child is in need of private counseling from an adult, the pair should only be together behind closed doors when the room is a glass enclosure or has windows, she noted.

And while topics such as sex may be uncomfortable for parents to discuss with their children, Doty explained that it is essential to create an open dialogue. "We need to have straight communication with our kids, so they feel comfortable telling us anything, anytime," she said.

Doty said in addition to raising awareness of child sexual abuse, she hopes the program will "begin to shift attitudes and dispel pre-conceived notions." Among the myths of child sexual abuse are that "children of ‘good’ parents aren’t abused, you can tell who an abuser is by the way he looks or it’s not happening in my backyard," she said.

For many years, she added, adults left children to defend themselves against sexual abuse by telling them to "say no, run away and tell someone" if they were threatened or victimized. But the most important part of Protecting God’s Children is to train reliable adults and create an atmosphere in which child sexual abuse is nearly impossible, Doty noted.

After attendees have a chance to learn the facts about the issue, they can work toward implementing preventative measures in their schools or parish communities, she said. To facilitate this process, VIRTUS offers Web-based continuing education.

The Internet training, Doty said, will help to reinforce what was discussed in the awareness sessions and give concrete, practical steps for putting the methods into place.

Marie Zach, director of religious education in St. Joseph Parish, New Brunswick, attended the program to find out more about ways to prevent child sexual abuse. "Of course, it’s important to protect our children," she said, "and it’s scary to realize these predators are out there." Zach, who considered the day to be an "eye-opening" experience, said she is looking forward to having a facilitator come to her parish and ultimately implementing the program there.

For Amelia Johnson, director of religious education in St. Mary of Mount Virgin Parish, New Brunswick, taking part in a program like Protecting God’s Children is a "moral obligation."

"We should all feel compelled to seek out better ways to make sure our children feel safe, and are safe," she stated.

If there is not yet a trained facilitator in a particular parish, all are invited to attend Protecting God’s Children sessions in neighboring parishes or schools. Individuals interested in becoming a facilitator should contact their pastor.

*The attached/referenced article was originally published in The Catholic Spirit, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, and is protected under U.S. and international copyright law

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