What are churches doing to stop predators in the church?

[JohnH]

Now let's have a hypothetical.

Suppose a family has parents who are struggling with discovering some inappropriate conduct between their two young children, which is estimated to have happened to about 6.5% of people in the United States where it would hit the threshold of what is mandated to be reported.

The parents seek counsel from ministers in the church how to resolve this situation. Perhaps the ministers refer them to an appropriate licenced family counsellor.

However, now the minister has to immediately report this to the authorities as soon as he's out of the meeting, which means it's likely the entire family's children will be tossed into foster care.

Now the children have ended up in an environment where abuse is actually far more likely to happen, estimated to be 25%-40% based on surveys of self-reports. Generally speaking, foster homes are expected to be about 3 times as more likely to have children mistreated or abused compared to children who are never in foster care.

(This kind of abuse between young siblings is by far the most common kind of sexual abuse that happens within a family, so this is also the most likely scenario.)

The law is the law, but I would think that a minister being able to use discretion and help the family access appropriate resources would often be better than simply having the children swept up and dumped into foster care 30 minutes after the parents meet with the ministers.

[joshuabgood]

I have worked with Children and Youth services quite closely in two different states. And while there are, I am sure, instances of where children were ill advisedly removed from a household, I don't think that is the greater error. And I personally have never seen this take place. In the cases I do know of where kids were removed, they needed to be, and they went to close relatives houses that were deemed safe.

The truth is these agencies are overworked and understaffed as a whole and in many more cases children are in serious danger and are being harmed, but are not removed until very significant harm has occurred, often repeatedly. They simply don't have the manpower to really investigate thoughtfully all the reports that come in, in many sectors.

I am a mandated reporter, and when I hear something that needs reported, I report it. There have been more than one situation where I needed to report something, and I could tell something was significantly "off" in addition to the direct report/allegation that needed reporting, the situation was "cleared" by the social services, only several years later to re-emerge with several more years of now "demonstrated" harm done to a child/children.

These are real children with real lives.

[Valerie]

I have worked with Children and Youth services quite closely in two different states. And while there are, I am sure, instances of where children were ill advisedly removed from a household, I don't think that is the greater error. And I personally have never seen this take place. In the cases I do know of where kids were removed, they needed to be, and they went to close relatives houses that were deemed safe.

The truth is these agencies are overworked and understaffed as a whole and in many more cases children are in serious danger and are being harmed, but are not removed until very significant harm has occurred, often repeatedly. They simply don't have the manpower to really investigate thoughtfully all the reports that come in, in many sectors.

I am a mandated reporter, and when I hear something that needs reported, I report it. There have been more than one situation where I needed to report something, and I could tell something was significantly "off" in addition to the direct report/allegation that needed reporting, the situation was "cleared" by the social services, only several years later to re-emerge with several more years of now "demonstrated" harm done to a child/children.

These are real children with real lives.

KrisKramer has zero faith due to this.
There are a lot of people who don’t believe in God because they don’t understand- if God is love- why doesn’t He intervene to protect? How does one explain this in such a way they can have faith and trust in Jesus in spite of this tragic life changing harm done to them? I know what we are supposed to convey - will God be merciful to these harmed ones “on that day” because what caused their disbelief?

[Soloist]

I have worked with Children and Youth services quite closely in two different states. And while there are, I am sure, instances of where children were ill advisedly removed from a household, I don't think that is the greater error. And I personally have never seen this take place. In the cases I do know of where kids were removed, they needed to be, and they went to close relatives houses that were deemed safe.

The truth is these agencies are overworked and understaffed as a whole and in many more cases children are in serious danger and are being harmed, but are not removed until very significant harm has occurred, often repeatedly. They simply don't have the manpower to really investigate thoughtfully all the reports that come in, in many sectors.

I am a mandated reporter, and when I hear something that needs reported, I report it. There have been more than one situation where I needed to report something, and I could tell something was significantly "off" in addition to the direct report/allegation that needed reporting, the situation was "cleared" by the social services, only several years later to re-emerge with several more years of now "demonstrated" harm done to a child/children.

These are real children with real lives.

Wife: yeah, we had a situation where we were babysitting while somebody was getting investigated for neglect (the ex had called in). there is also a certain level of common sense as to what is reportable or not, such as children playing doctor/young children touching another child/each other without intent, and what would actually qualify for talking to a pediatrician/liaison. The pediatrician/liaison won’t always report small things, because they also have more training as to what qualifies or not.

children are not always removed if it’s not necessary, and lots of times they just go to a family member or friends house if it is necessary. I actually looked it up because I was curious, so I’m going to post a link for anybody interested. I actually like how this article emphasizes seeking help for both of the children, and it doesn’t sound like they would automatically get labeled an offender for small things, although maybe other people actually have some real world experience.


https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blo ... l-behavior

[Valerie]

Then you have this recent court ruling of this horror that went on too long:

https://amishamerica.com/sam-shetler-in ... in-prison/

[JohnH]

I have worked with Children and Youth services quite closely in two different states. And while there are, I am sure, instances of where children were ill advisedly removed from a household, I don't think that is the greater error. And I personally have never seen this take place. In the cases I do know of where kids were removed, they needed to be, and they went to close relatives houses that were deemed safe.

You seem to have a very high degree of confidence in the foster system. I used to be a foster parent, and I do not share your degree of confidence in the foster system. I am surprise you are not aware that many times children are not placed in a close relative's house.

These are indeed real children with real lives, which is why I described both the real situation above the and the hypothetical situation as well.

The situation with people being required to narc out people to the cops is quite reminiscent of the Stazi.

[Soloist]

I have worked with Children and Youth services quite closely in two different states. And while there are, I am sure, instances of where children were ill advisedly removed from a household, I don't think that is the greater error. And I personally have never seen this take place. In the cases I do know of where kids were removed, they needed to be, and they went to close relatives houses that were deemed safe.

The truth is these agencies are overworked and understaffed as a whole and in many more cases children are in serious danger and are being harmed, but are not removed until very significant harm has occurred, often repeatedly. They simply don't have the manpower to really investigate thoughtfully all the reports that come in, in many sectors.

I am a mandated reporter, and when I hear something that needs reported, I report it. There have been more than one situation where I needed to report something, and I could tell something was significantly "off" in addition to the direct report/allegation that needed reporting, the situation was "cleared" by the social services, only several years later to re-emerge with several more years of now "demonstrated" harm done to a child/children.

These are real children with real lives.

KrisKramer has zero faith due to this.
There are a lot of people who don’t believe in God because they don’t understand- if God is love- why doesn’t He intervene to protect? How does one explain this in such a way they can have faith and trust in Jesus in spite of this tragic life changing harm done to them? I know what we are supposed to convey - will God be merciful to these harmed ones “on that day” because what caused their disbelief?

Wife: There was a good sermon somewhat about this by an Australian guy. Not specifically about SA (that’s a very small part of the sermon), and he did definitely emphasize that those sins should not be hidden and abuse should be reported, etc., but it was called Resolving the Parental Parodox, and the speaker was Alan Meyer. Listen to it before you share it, just to make sure whether it would help someone or not. I could see it being misunderstood in a way that the speaker would not intend, especially if they don’t finish listening to the sermon.https://www.baysidechurch.org.au/podcas ... l-paradox/

[Soloist]

Wife: as far as it goes, none of the actual cases people are complaining about on this thread in regards to ministry not reporting are about children just being too curious. All listed here (at least as far as I can tell) are adults or teens taking advantage of someone who is younger and more vulnerable (like their own child or a student or possibly younger sibling) in regards to rape or pretty straightforward molestation. Implies they are old enough to know better and lacking in self control to prevent it from happening again.

[Anthony]

Now let's have a hypothetical.

Suppose a family has parents who are struggling with discovering some inappropriate conduct between their two young children, which is estimated to have happened to about 6.5% of people in the United States where it would hit the threshold of what is mandated to be reported.

The parents seek counsel from ministers in the church how to resolve this situation. Perhaps the ministers refer them to an appropriate licenced family counsellor.

However, now the minister has to immediately report this to the authorities as soon as he's out of the meeting, which means it's likely the entire family's children will be tossed into foster care.

Now the children have ended up in an environment where abuse is actually far more likely to happen, estimated to be 25%-40% based on surveys of self-reports. Generally speaking, foster homes are expected to be about 3 times as more likely to have children mistreated or abused compared to children who are never in foster care.

(This kind of abuse between young siblings is by far the most common kind of sexual abuse that happens within a family, so this is also the most likely scenario.)

The law is the law, but I would think that a minister being able to use discretion and help the family access appropriate resources would often be better than simply having the children swept up and dumped into foster care 30 minutes after the parents meet with the ministers.

The thing with these numbers is that you are moving a kid from a known abusive environment to a potentially non-abusive environment. So its more like a 90% chance of abuse being dropped to 25-40%.

I have almost always seen a positive outcome from mandated reporting. The negative outcomes come from the degredation of the community in overzealous attempts to stop future sexual assault. Examples like were listed in previous comments, 2 adults in a room, mandated locked rooms, open door meetings. I would imagine enforcing these rules makes the church feel like a prison.

Theres some creative ways to deal with these issues, one of the obvious patterns in these cases is that its all men doing the assaults. Conservative anabaptists have another good perspective where women are primarily doing the teaching and child raising, so any man alone with a child is automatically suspicious. I imagine this could be a reason why Harold moved out of EPMC and into more liberal settings, i cant imagine him having access to children that were not his own after this was all revealed. ( though i dont know all the details of Harold’s case )

Most CA abuse happens within a family, with mandatory reporting slapped ontop i imagine CA settings would have one of the lowest child sexual assault instances on the planet.

[JohnH]

Theres some creative ways to deal with these issues, one of the obvious patterns in these cases is that its all men doing the assaults. Conservative anabaptists have another good perspective where women are primarily doing the teaching and child raising, so any man alone with a child is automatically suspicious. I imagine this could be a reason why Harold moved out of EPMC and into more liberal settings, i cant imagine him having access to children that were not his own after this was all revealed. ( though i dont know all the details of Harold’s case )

This isn’t accurate. I am aware of a CA family where the mother was the one with the reportable condition.

If you want something worse than that, I also know of a CA family that had a reportable condition (back in the 1970s) involving an adult female and a minor sibling.

Most CA abuse happens within a family, with mandatory reporting slapped ontop i imagine CA settings would have one of the lowest child sexual assault instances on the planet.

Nearly all sexual abuse on CA families is between siblings, just like it is in non-CA families. I do not think the speed at which children are placed in foster care makes things better. Foster situations are one of the most likely for children to be abused in.