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The Catholic Standard and Times
Lou Baldwin, Staff Reporter

Parish facilitation training: Helping adults safeguard kids
3 May 2007

Jerry Daley grew up in a good stable family, and so did his friends - the kind of families where bad things don’t happen to kids.
Then he became a police officer, and it didn’t take the 25 years he served on the force to learn bad things do happen to kids. Sure, sometimes children will report something that sounds improbable, but almost always, it turns out, someone did something terrible to them that should not have been done.
Child abuse, including the sexual abuse of children “transcends race, religion, profession, economic status,” Daley said.
When the clergy sex abuse scandal hit a few years back, Daley had mixed emotions about the intense media coverage, but he also thought, “Something has to be done.”
Then his pastor, Father James Callahan at Christ the King Parish in the far Northeast, asked him to serve on the team of facilitators who teach the Safe Environment Awareness program, which is mandatory throughout the Archdiocese for all employees, school and parish workers and volunteers who have contact with children.
Daley agreed to serve, and the two-day VIRTUS training program, designed by the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc., made him realize that, yes, something is being done.
“It was very well put together,” he said. “It didn’t just instill a sense of caution, it was proactive prevention.”
Now Daley is part of a team of facilitators at Christ the King Parish who present the program to others who, in some way, will have contact with children through the parish’s multiplicity of programs - from school volunteers to sports coaches. With him on the team are St. Joseph Sister Christine Konopelski and parish worker Fran Williams. Each brings a special perspective to the mix.
So far, they’ve given four or five presentations, each time to a group ranging in size from 30 to 40 people. Most who attend are aware that the problem of child abuse exists in society, and are genuinely interested in learning either how to prevent it or how to detect it. A few people attend because they have to - but even for them, Daley notices, “as the program progresses, the walls break down.”
Personally, he has years of experience with youth sports, and remembers simpler times, when a coach could give a hug to a kid who made a great shot. In today’s climate that’s not possible.
“There is a concern,” he said.
“How do we act? We want to be loving and supporting, but we don’t want to be in a position that might be misinterpreted,” Daley said. “The best defense is to always have two adults present.”
When the Safe Environment Awareness program was instituted, parish workers and volunteers had to go to central locations to receive the training.
“We currently have 140 parish-based facilitators for 90 parishes,” said Evelyn Brannan Tarpey, who oversees the program for the Archdiocese.
“Many pastors send multiple people for training, and create a Safe Environment team,” she said. “During the fall of 2006, the parish facilitators presented over 80 percent of the training sessions offered. The gift of their time and talents are a blessing to those who attend the training sessions, and to the children that these adults are learning to better protect.”
When Denise Maida, along with Kevin Kelley, was asked by Msgr. Thomas Owens to be a facilitator for St. Alphonsus Parish in Maple Glen, she, like Daley, thought there wasn’t much the facilitator-training sessions could teach her.
“I’ve been a counselor for 10 years,” she said. “I teach graduate psychology at La Salle University. I’ve worked with children, with abuse survivors, even with perpetrators.”
But even for her, the VIRTUS presentation was a revelation. The heart of the presentation consists of filmed disclosures by convicted sexual predators, detailing just how they lured children for abuse. The abusers come across in the films as outwardly respectable people, even likable, and hence, more insidious.
“I’m trained in this area, but I learned a lot,” Maida said. “I learned what to look for, the warning signs, prevention.”
While facilitators have two days of training, and keep abreast with VIRTUS updates on the internet, the parish program runs about two or three hours, according to Maida
At St. Alphonsus, there have been three workshops for the parish workers and volunteers, with presentations before 20 to 50 people. Because not every parish has a Safe Environment facilitator or team of facilitators, some participants have come from other parishes.
In addition to the films, there are periods for questions and discussion. Maida knows those who attend find the workshop helpful because they praise it on the evaluation sheets they are given.
“They all think highly of the films,” she said, “and are surprised by the statistics - the number of people who have been sexually abused.”

Lou Baldwin is a member of St. Leo Parish and a freelance writer.

SIDEBAR:
Facilitator qualifications and criteria:
• Commitment to the Safe Environment Program goals.
• Strong Communication skills.
• Understanding of adult learning.
• Willingness to discuss sensitive content in a public setting.
• Ability to facilitate small groups.
• Good organizational skills.
• Available to attend a mandatory, 2-day facilitator training and attend a VIRTUS-led “Protecting God’s Children” awareness session for adults as preparation to present the program.
• Willingness to complete on-line, monthly training provided by VIRTUS.
For further information, call 215-587-2466.