Friends and Safety:
FGConnections Summer 2005
Creating Loving, Safe Communities
by Liz Perch
FGC Child
Abuse Prevention Policy,
adopted October 2004
Our obligation is to create a safe community for our children and a safe community for those who work with our children. As Friends General Conference (FGC) developed our new policy on child-abuse prevention, we began to understand that just working on the policy was part of creating trust and safety. Having an abuse prevention policy sets a framework for trust. It lets newcomers, both volunteers providing childcare and families with children know that there are community goals for child safety.
A year ago FGC got a letter from our insurance company, as did many meetings, insisting that we modify and improve our policy for hiring volunteers who work with children. Child safety wasn’t a new idea but the insurance company spurred us to move forward. The logistics of criminal background checking were one of the things holding us back. By using the resources provided by the insurance company, background checking became simplified and straightforward, allowing us to accomplish what we knew needed to be done. These resources are available to meetings, no matter how small. As yearly meetings and monthly meetings adopt abuse prevention policies as FGC has done, doing background checks will become the norm. However, the information from a background check is individual to each institution and cannot be shared.
Friends would really like to be in the world but “not of the world” but we are not. The reality is that there are children who have been abused in our meetings. Mostly we are talking about sexual abuse and that makes it especially difficult because anything involving sex is a flash point for many people. However, when we talk about child abuse we also mean it to include physical, emotional and psychological abuse.
When questions came up in the past about doing background checks on volunteers working with children, the biggest issue aside from logistics was the issue of trust. FGC, like a lot of meetings, had to face the question of what trust is and how trust is built in a community. The challenge for us was to work toward the goal with a loving, safe, trusting attitude instead of from a place of fear and suspicion.
Some Friends have the idea that child abuse does not and will not happen to Quakers. Or, that it happens much less in Quaker meetings because there are no ministers (who are thought to be the perpetrators in other religious communities). The only reason child abuse may happen less within Quaker meetings is when the whole meeting community struggles together and embraces a policy of child safety that they are ready and able to use as needed.
While writing a policy is difficult, it is in formulating the procedures that the rubber meets the road. You have to deal with things like—what happens when an accusation is made? How, when and who will work with the child, the child’s family as well as the person accused? Procedures cannot cover every eventuality. They can cover the most likely scenarios and they need to specify responsible parties to make decisions and carry them out using discernment and discretion. The community needs to trust these people to do the right thing given the difficult choices involved. It is likely that the Gathering will soon offer a workshop on child safety to share the resources and wisdom we have accumulated from our experiences within the FGC community.
Child abuse policy, procedures and background checks are some of the tools that are designed to keep children safe within the meeting community. But it’s not a guarantee of safety. And the very safety, love and trust created may lead to problems of hidden abuse surfacing within families, kinship groups and family networks.
When we create a strong community where children feel safe and trust the members of the community, a child in an unsafe situation in any part of his/her life may turn to the adults in that community for help with abusive situations. We hope that having given children the resources they need and the respect they deserve that they will seek out the adults they trust. Then we have to deal with issues of trust, safety and healing with that child’s extended family or within his/her own family. Meeting communities may want to start thinking through how this healing can occur. What resources does the meeting have to deal with this? Most meetings should have resources to deal with other similar situations (custody battles, divorce, abuse issues) that can serve as a foundation for child abuse issues.
No matter what we do, no matter how well we protect our children in our communities, no one can guarantee perfect safety for children. In our imperfect world it is likely that some children will wind up being abused, no matter what we do. Accepting this situation and being prepared to meet it in the best way possible is the work FGC has undertaken. We hope meetings have and will join us in this endeavor.
FGC Child Abuse Prevention Policy
FGC policy, adopted October 2004
Bibliography
Meeting Safety published by Quaker Home Service, Britain Yearly Meeting (2001). While the language and specific legal details in this booklet are particular to the UK, the queries and examples are from a Quaker perspective, making this resource valuable even in the US.
Trust and Trespass: Quaker Meetings and Sex Offenders by Daphne Glazer (2004) Another publication of Britain Yearly Meeting, this book addresses safety, trust, and forgiveness for Friends.
Safe Sanctuaries: Reducing the Risk of Child Abuse in the Church by Joy Thornburg Melton (2003). Clear and concise, with sample policies, forms and implementation procedures. Also
Safe Sanctuaries for Youth: Reducing the Risk of Abuse in Youth Ministries by the same author, more directed at Middle School and High School programming.
Addressing Sexual Abuse in Friends Meetings, compiled by the Working Party on Sexual Abuse of New England Yearly Meeting Ministry and Counsel (1994). Deals more with sexual abuse that has occurred within meeting families, as well as how meetings might respond to an offender in their midst.
Reducing the Risk II distributed by Guide One Insurance. A comprehensive step by step outline, a little heavy on the “liability” part, but it is put out by our insurers!
Better Safe than Sued by Jack Crabtree. Everything you never thought of with respect to child and youth safety. Hazards around every corner! But a good wake-up call for those who seem naïve.
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