Resources on Child Safety and Prevention of Child Abuse

Current Friends Meeting of Austin Practices & Policy for the Protection of Children and Youth

In Feburary 2011, Friends Meeting of Austin approved our Practices & Policy for the Protection of Children and Youth with the following minute:
 

2011.2.5 Friends Meeting of Austin approves the Practices and Policy for the Protection of Children and Youth acknowledging that there are Friends who are uncomfortable with the policy of requiring criminal background checks.

This document is available below.

Background

First Day School Committee has discussed this issue several times over the years. Most recently, we began looking into what other Meetings were doing regarding concerns about the prevention of child abuse in the spring of 2007.

Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business on September 2, 2007, approved the following minute:

2007.9.4. Friends Meeting of Austin values our children's safety, and in light of that, the Meeting will form an ad hoc committee (including at least one Trustee, one member of FDS, and one member of Oversight) to develop child safety and abuse prevention policies and procedures for the Meeting and for FDS.
 

Update December 9, 2007 Called Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business

The committee consisting of Allen Cooper, Galia Harrington, Warren Wilson Reiner and Marty Calliham, gave a preliminary report as documented in the minutes published in Friendly Notes, January 2008. There was considerable discussion on the issue and Friends expressed appreciation that this difficult topic is being addressed. Several sample documents forming the basis of the committee's initial investigation are listed below. Additional background and resources from a wide variety of sources are listed in the next section of the page.

Update Fall 2010

The committee, now consisting of John Stockton, Galia Harrington, Allen Cooper and Warren Wilson-Reiner, continues to labor with this issue. The committee was joined by several members of First Day School Committee on September 12, 2010 for a presentation by The Rev. Janne Alrø Osborne, Associate Rector, St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Austin, who is responsible for this training for Episcopal congregations throughout Texas. Rev. Osborne showed two video tapes which are used in their training and shared the following documents which lay out the policies and procedures used by this faith commmunity. These documents are listed below.

Resources on Child Abuse Prevention for faith groups

These documents are provided as resources for the committee as items already reviewed in lesser or greater detail by First Day School Committee members. Listed here are documents from Friends General Conference, American Friends Service Committee, Baltimore Yearly Meeting, New England Yearly Meeting, Chestnut Hill Monthly Meeting (PhYM), Friends Meeting of Cambridge, New Haven Monthly Meeting, Wellesley Monthly Meeting and Friends Meeting of Wilmington (DE). There is also a document from the Church Pension Group of the Episcopal Church.
 

Resources from Friends General Conference and other Meetings

Friends General Conference

American Friends Service Committee

 

Baltimore Yearly Meeting

This document contains a number of forms and checklist that may be of interest. An editable Word document is available from Erika Mittag.

 

 

 

 

New England Yearly Meeting Statement

Although this report was presented in August 2005, there is no record on the NEYM website of its adoption by the Yearly Meeting. It is offered as guidance to Monthly Meetings in the preparation of policies and procedures fitting their circumstances.

 

 

Table of Contents of NEYM Statement

 

  • I. Introduction p. 2
  • II. Child Safety Policy p. 4
  • III. Practices to Support Policy p. 6
  • IV. Risk Reduction Principles p. 9
  • V. Appendices p. 13
  • A. Code of Conduct for Youth workers p. 14
  • B. Sample forms p. 16
  • 1. Application p. 16
  • 2. Reference Check p. 19
  • 3. Incident Report p. 21
  • 4. Response Checklist p. 24
  • C. Responding to a Concern --- further discussion p. 26
  • D. State Reporting Laws and Agencies p. 32
  • 1. Connecticut p. 32
  • 2. Maine p. 34
  • 3. Massachusetts p. 38
  • 4. New Hampshire p. 40
  • 5. Rhode Island p. 42
  • 6. Vermont p. 43
  • E. Sexual Abuse --- Additional Information p. 46
  • F. “Child Safety: Getting Started” article plus “An Outlet of Ingredients” p. 51
  • G. “How Can I Help Protect My Child from Sexual Abuse” handout p. 54
  • H. Literature and Resources p. 57
  • 1. Web pages p. 57
  • 2. Printed Materials p. 57
  • 3. Organizations p. 58

 

Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

PYM has a number of resources and links on their website.

 

Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting)

 

Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting (Philadelphia Yearly Meeting)

 

 

Friends Meeting of Cambridge (MA)

Child Safety at Friends Meeting at Cambridge
In the winter of 2006, Friends Meeting approved the following Minute of Concern:
We cherish the children and youth in the Friends Meeting at Cambridge community and the trust that they show in us as caring adults. We believe that children and youth need a whole community that cares about them and actively engages with them. As a result, we welcome and encourage loving engagement between the adults and young people of our Meeting. We are sadly aware that sexual abuse of children and youth occurs in religious communities as well as in the wider society. We are therefore committed to policies and procedures that will help us reduce the risk of harm happening to our beloved children and youth while in our care and elsewhere. Our work as a meeting includes raising awareness within the community, including adults, youth and children, about sexual abuse risk reduction and response.

FMC followed up this Minute of Concern in the spring of 2006 by approving a thorough policy to reduce the risk of sexual abuse of children and youth involved in First Day School and FMC youth programs. An 11 page document available from the FMC office includes this policy, attendant practices, Mandated Reporter guidelines, and other related documents. Everyone in the FMC community is encouraged to become familiar with these materials so that we can work together to provide a safe and nurturing community for our young people.

 

 

 

New Haven Monthly Meeting (NEYM)

This document was scanned and is large (9.4M). It may take some time to download and the latest version of Acrobat reader is recommended. This document is only 31 pages.

 

Wellesley Friends Meeting

Small brochure outlining the basics.

 

 

 

Beth Collea shared the following: NEYM uses Reducing the Risk as a resource that we especially like. The premise is that you can never 100% prevent all abuse, but what we can do is to reduce the risk. One facet that I found helpful boiled guidelines down to:

  • As isolation goes up; risk of abuse goes up.
  • As the power differential between people goes up; risk of abuse goes up.
  • As accountability goes down; risk of abuse goes up.

For each statement, you could also say "risk of a false accusation goes up" each time. So, the basic setting of guidelines for behavior and best practice, protect everyone.

 

These are really good, fairly easy to remember, rules of thumb for situations that come up when unforeseen things happen and you have to do your best to maintain a safe environment. For example, if you are left waiting with the last child to be picked up after an event and the parent is really late, you could call the parent (increase accountability) and tell him/her that you will be across the street waiting at the Dunkin Donuts (decreasing the isolation).

 

West Chester Monthly Meeting (PA)

 

 

Wilmington Friends Meeting (DE)

 

 

Other Resources

The Church Pension Group of the Episcopal Church published the following in 2004.