Protecting God's Children

The Protecting God's Children program consists of various components. The education component helps raise the awareness of child sexual abuse by helping adults become aware of the issues surrounding child sexual abuse. This includes the many ways that sexual abuse harms victims, their families, parishes, and communities. The Protecting God's Children program also helps adults learn to recognize the warning signs of abuse and teaches the appropriate ways to respond to suspicious behaviors.

The goal of the program is to maximize those efforts by helping parishes and communities refine their roles as child-safe environments and empower them with new tools to help them, as adults and parents, to protect children and youth. Part of raising one's awareness about child abuse is realizing that child abusers seek to operate and abuse their power within nurturing, child-friendly environments where it is assumed that nobody would want to harm a child. The Protecting God's Children program implements safety mechanisms that send a message to all abusers and potential abusers that:

Child abuse is not tolerated
Children and youth are vigilantly protected
Victims are listened to, heard, and shielded from further abuse
Offenders are identified and removed

The goal of the awareness session is to empower each person with the five steps to help prevent sexual abuse within the church environment and within society in general.

A plan to protect God's children includes five steps to protect all children and youth.

1. Know the warning signs
2. Control access
3. Monitor all programs
4. Be aware
5. Communicate your concerns

All adults are needed to protect children and youth, but it is those who interact with children and youth who become the core of the prevention effort within each parish or community, but it is those adults who spend the most time with young people who become the primary individuals watching over and protecting them.

Protecting God's Children helps caring adults become part of the solution in raising a "healthy suspicion" about something in their surroundings. Concern and observation assists adults in protecting all children, youth, and vulnerable adults from being abused. The hope of Protecting God's Children program is to empower adults to better protect children and youth.

Awareness and education are major steps in identifying potential abuse and being able to identify the short-term effects of sexual abuse. Such awareness and education can help in eliminating the long-term effects of sexual abuse if not the reality of sexual abuse itself.

Perhaps through the Protecting God's Children program we can find a way to increase our awareness and the awareness of others and commit ourselves to preventing child sexual abuse.

Anyone who serves as a member of the school or parish staff, teacher, teacher aide, volunteer of any kind, coach, assistant coach, cook, or janitor is required by the policies of the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois to attend a Protecting God's Children class and receive a certificate. At St. Anthony's the coordinator of the Protecting God's Children program is Sister Alicia Drone, ASC. You may contact her for scheduled classes at St. Anthony or for those being scheduled in the vicinity by calling the parish office, 217-347-7129.