Safe Environment Training
This message contains information regarding child safety in regards to child abuse. There are parts in this message that may be difficult to handle but I feel very strongly about protecting our children.
As some of you know I sing at our church during the Life Teen Mass. It is contemporary music verging on christian rock at times. It was my way of still being a part of a band. The young teens love it and so do most young adults. Mass is packed just about every Sun. except when the Cowboys are playing.
Because my position is a volunteer post we are required through the diocese to take what's called Safe Environment Training. Because of the numerous accounts of innapropriate behavior with children and young adults in years past this training was required by all employees and volunteers of the church starting in 2002. I've taken the course a few years ago and was due to update my training. I was kind of putting it off thinking that it was a silly course for me to take since I really don't have any interaction with children or youths.
So I finally took the class. It was a 3 hour course which included lunch. All I have to say is that everyone I know should take this class. One of the reasons given for making this mandatory is that the more eyes and ears you have looking for stuff the better. Just because you don't interact with youth doesn't mean you aren't among them, especially during a church or school function. The presentation included video interviews from incarcerated sex offenders. It gave you all the things they would do to lure and gain trust in these young children. The second part included appropriate behavior when dealing with young people, boundaries, warning signs, how to teach our children how to communicate, monitoring, training and reporting. As you know abuses occur everywhere not just in our churches and schools. Abusers have many faces male and female alike. The statistics are staggering. The more educated we all are the less chance these people are able to abuse. Please teach your children the correct names of their body parts as soon as they can understand. How do you expect a child to tell you something bad has happened to them if they don't have a name for the part of their body that has been violated.
Maybe you don't volunteer at church or school but if it's possible consider taking one of these classes if it's offered.
In closing, 1 out of 4 females and 1 out of 8 males will be abused. While I was sitting in the room with all these adults I wondered which ones were the victims and how hard this class must have been. Well I got my answer. As I was leaving the church grounds I had a short conversation with a woman I know by face only. I told her how glad I was that they made me take this course and how much I had learned. She told me how hard it was to take the class because she was a victim of child abuse but was happy that this course was finally available.
Knowledge Is Power
Sermon over.