By Peter Hirschfeld
Times Argus
August 19, 2008
http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080819/NEWS01/808190359/1002/NEWS01
MONTPELIER – At the Park Street Program in Rutland, Chuck Laramie works five days a week with teenage boys accused of sex crimes against children.
His work as their teacher, he said, has offered him insight into the minds and behavioral patterns of known abusers. And his informed assessment of the problem elicited audible gasps from an audience Monday.
"In every single town in Vermont today, a kid is being sexually assaulted," Laramie said during a presentation on child sex abuse at the Statehouse.
 |
| Nationally known child protection advocate Ken Wooden addresses a small gathering Monday at the Statehouse in Montpelier. Photo by Stefan Hard |
Laramie wasn't the featured lecturer Monday afternoon. That honor belonged to Kenneth Wooden, a Shelburne man whose sex-abuse prevention programs have earned national renown. But Laramie's off-the-cuff remarks laid bare the magnitude of a problem that, in the wake of the Brooke Bennett murder, Vermonters seem eager to remedy.
"This is happening more than anybody wants to admit," Laramie said. "And we want to cover it up."
Wooden, whose Child Lures Prevention pro-grams are based on his own interviews with thousands of sexual predators across the country, said the problem is every bit as pervasive as Laramie suggests. Only when states introduce prevention strategies into the public school curriculum, Wooden said, will children have the tools they need to avoid becoming victims.
"Sexual abuse of women and children is a silent, violent epidemic in America," Wooden said. "So how do you cope with an epidemic? You have to develop a vaccine."
That vaccine, according to Wooden, consists of ongoing, school-based classes that teach kids how offenders work and what to look out for.
"If we don't all know the lures, we can all become victims," he said.
Wooden's closely cropped white beard and dark, pinstripe suit lend him a professorial aura. Indeed, the former Chicago Sun-Times journalist, twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, has lectured at dozens of colleges and universities. His curriculum is taught in 5,000 schools around the United States, including all institutions run by the Catholic Diocese in Vermont.
Wooden was quick to point out these successes, and many others, in a 90-minute presentation. He seemed genuine in his newfound dedication to protecting children and teenagers in his own state, a passion sparked, he said, by the rape and murder in 2007 of University of Vermont student Michelle Gardner Quinn.
"Because we do not deal with sex abuse … we let it flourish, and in letting it flourish we have so many social problems," he said.
Wooden's age-based curricula seeks to tap into children's own innate understanding of appropriate behavior. Kids, he said, can be taught that people are like "the weather," safe and healthy most of the time, but in rare circumstances threatening.
"We have human tornadoes, and we teach you how they're going to lure you into a bad situation," Wooden said.
The 17 "lures" comprise the cornerstone of Wooden's program. When children understand the strategies most often employed by sexual predators, he said, they are far less likely to be manipulated by them.
"If our kids knew these lures … it's going to be far more difficult to exploit them," he said. "At least let's make the playing field a little more even."
Kevin Scully, head of child protection for the Burlington Diocese, lauded the effectiveness of Wooden's programs in Vermont's Roman Catholic schools and encouraged state leaders to adopt the program in public schools.
He said the Catholic Church's efforts to overcome its own scandalous past required an intensified focus on the problem.
"No one has been rocked so hard by such events," Scully said. "We need to take the lead, to focus on prevention."
Laramie said public schools should add sex-abuse prevention classes to the list of required curriculum. It won't save every child, he said, but he wants other children in Vermont to understand the strategies his own students may use to victimize them in the future.
"(Offenders) know what they're doing. They know how to do it, where to do it, and they're very good at it," Laramie said of young sex offenders. "If we can go in and tell them what to look out for, I think that would go a long way."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.