Protecting Gods Children
Report Abuse
A report can be made regardless of when the alleged abuse occurred. We encourage you to come forward. To contact the victim assistance coordinator, email vac@grdiocese.org, call 616-840-2079, or write to Diocese of Grand Rapids, Attn: Victim Assistance Coordinator, 360 Division Ave. S., Grand Rapids, MI 49503. A complaint may also be filed with the appropriate civil authority or the Michigan State Police at 616-866-6666.
Protecting God’s Children for Adults
Protecting God’s Children® for Adults is training conducted by VIRTUS® certified facilitators on the prevention of child sexual abuse. The training makes participants aware of the signs of child sexual abuse, the methods and means by which offenders commit abuse, and five easy steps one can use to prevent child sexual abuse. Two videos are the centerpiece of the training: A Time to Protect God’s Children™ and A Plan to Protect God’s Children™. The facilitators incorporate policies and procedures into the training defining child sexual abuse, addressing the reporting of child sexual abuse, the screening and selection of employees and volunteers, and victim advocacy. [1]
Empowering God’s Children
Protecting God’s Children, Empowering God’s Children®, is a school-based curriculum. The job of ensuring children’s safety is a challenging undertaking. The prevention of child sexual abuse requires more than adult awareness, education, and training about the nature and scope of the problem. We must also give our children the tools they need to overcome the advances of someone who intends to do them harm. The Teaching Safety program is a vehicle through which parents, teachers, catechists, and youth ministers (educators) give children and young people the tools they need to protect themselves from those who might harm them.
The award-winning Power to Protect™ video lays the groundwork for the educator, who uses the activities to help students apply the message from the lessons to their daily lives. The lessons are organized in a three-year cycle so each child experiences a totally different lesson plan each time the materials are presented. Each child receives the full range of information from the Teaching Teaching Safety Guide in small, “digestible” bites, over a three-year period. Then, as a child advances to the next age group, there are a whole new set of age appropriate lessons that explore the major topics in increasingly greater detail.
The Teaching Boundary and Safety Guide™ is a booklet guide that provides best practices for caring adults, lesson leaders and parents for teaching children how to protect themselves. It can be used as a stand-alone guide, or can be distributed to caring adults and parents to assist with the Teaching Safety Program for Children. In an effort to assist in this monumental mission of protecting youth, all of our programs, including our school-based curriculum and this booklet guide, provide for collaboration between parents and lesson leaders in establishing safety guidelines and principles. Through these programs, caring adults become partners with parents to ensure that all children are protected and that youth also have the tools they need to protect themselves. [1]