"Safe While in Our Care" : San Francisco Archdiocese Creates New Office to Protect Children, California Catholic Daily, January 4, 2008

"Safe While in Our Care"
San Francisco Archdiocese Creates New Office to Protect Children

California Catholic Daily
January 4, 2008

http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=03dd9ee0-31ad-4905-9f24-e0fdbbe21449

The Archdiocese of San Francisco has established the Office of Children and Youth Protection, which will merge into a single office all existing archdiocesan agencies responsible for protecting children under archdiocesan care.

"Parents must be assured that their children are safe while in our care," Archbishop George Niederauer told the Dec. 21 Catholic San Francisco.

Headed by Deacon John Norris, the office, according to the archdiocesan newspaper, will "consolidate the efforts of the various offices of the Pastoral Center that have become involved over time with carrying out mandates for dioceses issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse crisis of recent years."

In 2006, the archdiocese implemented an on-line program, Recognize, Report, and Prevent Child Abuse "Shield the Vulnerable," for its employees and volunteers who have regular contact with children. With the establishment of the Office of Children and Youth Protection, employees and volunteers will now be required to take the new program.

The mandatory program is designed to make sure children in archdiocesan schools, parishes, and other entities are safe from abuse. The program trains employees and volunteers on how "to recognize, report and prevent child abuse," said an October 2006 archdiocesan newsletter. The program provides employees and volunteers with California's state mandated sexual harassment training.

The program will apparently train personnel to recognize and report not only abuse by clergy, religious, and archdiocesan employees, but also abuse from other sources -- including the home.

The 2006 newsletter provided a link to the "Shield the Vulnerable" web site, provided by a group called Lawroom, with resources for dealing with abuse. One of these resources is the state attorney general's Safe State web site, which provides a link to a state document, Child Abuse: Educator's Responsibilities.

According to that document, child abuse can be physical, sexual, and emotional. "Mandated reporters may report suspected emotional abuse," but must report suspected cases of severe emotional abuse, says the document.

Examples of emotional abuse, says the document, include "excessive verbal assaults (such as belittling, screaming, threatening, blaming, or using sarcasm); unpredictable responses or inconsistency; continual negative moods; constant family discord; and double-message communication." One sign of this, says the document, is a child saying, "unwittingly 'Mommy always tells me I'm bad." Then there is "emotional deprivation," which the state defines as "the deprivation suffered by children when their parents do not provide the normal experiences producing feelings of being loved, wanted, secure and worthy."

Among the signs of emotional abuse are refusing "to eat adequate amounts of food" and resulting frailty; being "unable to perform normal learned functions for a given age (such as walking or talking);" being "abnormally unresponsive, sad, or withdrawn;" seeking out and pestering "other adults for attention and affection;" and displaying "exaggerated fears."

"Emotional abuse is very difficult to prove," says Child Abuse: Educator's Responsibilities. "Cumulative documentation by a law enforcement or child welfare agency may be necessary for effective intervention. Therefore, emotionally abused children should be referred for treatment as soon as possible."

Other California dioceses working with "Shield the Vulnerable" are Oakland, Stockton, Orange, Los Angeles, San Jose, Santa Rosa, and Stockton.