Youth Safety Deserves Ongoing Commitment

THE LAST 18 YEARS HAVE BEEN TRANSFORMATIVE in the American Catholic church, as tremendous resources have been invested in creating safe environments for youth and vulnerable adults. During this time, hundreds of religious institutes, dioceses, and Catholic organizations have worked at developing safe environments for children, youth, and vulnerable persons served in Catholic ministries. From increased screening and training expectations to more swift and compassionate responses to allegations, Catholic organizations have in many instances led the safeguarding efforts for other industries—other denominations, schools, group homes, YMCAs etc.—that serve vulnerable populations.

Those of us in the safeguarding field often discuss what we call the “three C journey,” which offer a good framework for assessing how well an organization creates and sustains a safe environment.

The three Cs, or the path from compliance to commitment, are:

Complacent organizations:

• deny an abuse incident could happen

• hope past success will prevent future abuse

• have few standardized procedures

• tend to have punitive responses

• treat incidents as individual failures (bad apple syndrome)

Compliant organizations:

• focus on reacting to abuse rather than preventing it

• use diocesan rules as the standard of care

• focus their training on identifying and reporting abuse

• have “a policy”

• minimize red-flag behaviors

Committed organizations:

• see creating safe environments as everyone’s responsibility

• schedule training frequently and ensure that it is relevant, impactful, and offered “just in time”

• continually update their best practices

• have a continuous quality improvement process

Creating a safe environment for vulnerable populations starts with commitment to bringing the right people into you organization. Read more here.