Abuse Prevention Training Required to Work with Youth

I agree this is a great step forward. :thumbup: It’s about time. I got the memo yesterday and it seems almost every calling is on the list, as it should be. I intend to complete it this weekend and strongly push it in next week’s stake council, although I’m sure my SP will be strongly pushing it on his own.

Our primary president forwarded it onto us parents of primary children (who might sub in primary) as well as her primary teachers yesterday. :clap:

I guess I’ll give the dissenting opinion.

I find it odd that there’s different counsel in how to respond to abuse depending on whether you’re a BP or SP. I continue to struggle with why leaders are counseled to go through church hierarchical channels when reporting abuse rather than the same channel they counsel regular members to use – the authorities, secular authorities. Is it about protecting the youth or protecting the church? Perhaps protecting the BP/SP, because in some way they are the face of the church.

They mention emotional abuse. Disclaimer: this is coming from a person with a background in dealing with scrupulosity. I believe the very way in which we have packaged the gospel can cause emotional abuse. Specifically, causing people to question their self worth and the culture’s obsession with worthiness and perfectionism. This message gets internalized by our youth and I don’t think it’s healthy.

The training mentions abuse in the form of coercion. Leadership roulette perhaps, but in my experience coercion has become an accepted part of our practice of religion. Don’t say no to a calling. Church of assignments, not volunteers. When you were baptized you made a promise to [fill in the blank]. Who do I report the systemic coercion to?

After the training, I’m wondering why two deep leadership isn’t policy when it comes to youth interviews. Personally, I don’t think we should be doing worthiness interviews for any member of the church, but if we’re going to do them, and we’re going to do them for youth… if we’re so concerned with two deep leadership when the church building is full and abuzz on Sundays, then we should be that much more concerned with two deep leadership when a child is alone with an adult behind a closed door with no windows. Especially since the interview includes a question that broaches the subject of sex.

The church could make it a policy to require that a parent or guardian be present during all interviews overnight if they wanted to. Or better yet, drop the interview altogether.

Something is better than nothing I guess.

In this training, do they talk about when law enforcement is contacted? And who makes the contact?

My understanding is that if someone reports abuse to you as a non-bishop/SP, you should:

1) believe them.

2) report it to the authorities.

In this training, do they talk about when law enforcement is contacted? And who makes the contact?

They do barely make the point that if you become aware of abuse you should report it. As noted in Nibbler’s post and my response, the policy seems to be different for leaders (but shouldn’t be IMO). They focus much more on the two-deep adult part.

I am aware fully that this isn’t the end result I desire, but I also applaud what has been done – primarily for a couple of reasons:

1) The counsel clearly says members should report abuse to the proper non-church authorities. To me, that simple statement is huge – and needed badly. There used to be an “out” for members not to report abuse; there is no such excuse now.

I personally believe people in positions that require strong trust in confidentiality still should report abuse when they learn of it, but I also understand the idea that people won’t confess past actions if they know they will be reported to legal authorities – that automatically reporting such things buries the actions further into obscurity and decreases the likelihood of learning about them and helping the perpetrator. I also understand there are legal and ecclesiastical complications in those situations, particularly when a leader only suspects abuse but has no proof (and when reporting laws can vary quite radically from state to state), so I understand having local leaders contact legal experts when they suspect abuse – particularly since those local leaders nearly always are NOT experts in this area. Ideally, would I like mandating reporting? Yes. However, I do understand not requiring it in all cases of suspicion, particularly.

2) As presented, there is a strong case to be made that two-deep interaction with an individual is appropriate in all cases – so I am cautiously optimistic that interviews will fall into that category immediately or soon. I know my most recent Bishop already was having another female present (outside a non-closed door) whenever he interviewed a female youth or adult. I think this announcement might be a prelude to that becoming the default in the near future. Also, requiring two-deep participation in deeply personal, confidential situations isn’t required in most if not all professional fields, so I am hesitant to push for it when confession is part of the potential outcome.

Finally, I agree requiring background checks would be a solid way to address much potential abuse, but, in practice, that would mean doing such checks on nearly all active adult members – on a regular basis (at least every 2-3 years for younger adults and every 5-10 years for older adults). To be solid, it couldn’t be just a one-time check. (Given my professional focus areas, I have been fingerprinted and background checked 7 times in the last 6 years – and I have worked directly with young children only 2 of those years.) The practical burden that would place on the Church would be enormous.

On a Good, Better, Best scale, I would rate this at least Good and absolutely Better than the past. Frankly, I think Best is impossible – particularly given the core reliance on extensive volunteer effort to staff the instruction within the Church. Thus, I hope for a stronger Better – but I do see it as Good-Better now.

I am aware fully that this isn’t the end result I desire, but I also applaud what has been done – primarily for a couple of reasons:

1) The counsel clearly says members should report abuse to the proper non-church authorities. To me, that simple statement is huge – and needed badly. There used to be an “out” for members not to report abuse; there is no such excuse now.

I hope that this is communicated to the general membership. This is the first time I’ve heard it. I can imagine that there are some leaders

that would prefer that they were the first contact & they made the decision to contact non-church authorities (or not).

Thanks Curt for the clarification.