By Patrick Downes

Programs aimed to protect young people from sexual abuse are quickly becoming a permanent part of the Catholic Church in Hawaii.

Under the title, “creating safe environments,” practically everyone who works in any capacity in Hawaii’s 66 parishes and 40 schools are being trained to recognize, report and safeguard against sexual abuse of minors.

“About 3,000 have already been through the classes,” said Lorie Crepeau, the diocesan religious education director who so far has conducted most of the training. Since January 2004, 86 sessions have been offered to Catholic parish and school personnel in Hawaii.

Crepeau will be getting help. In a Jan. 27-28 workshop at St. Stephen Diocesan Center, 21 people from every island except Lanai were “trained to be trainers.” The group, made up of priests, nuns, lay people, and deacon candidates, will be responsible for bringing safe environment instruction to their parishes.

Catholic school principals or their delegates will receive the same training, Feb. 17-18.

Conducting the workshop were Barbara Mullen and Joseph Bloom, the director and the assistant director respectively of Catholic Charities Hawaii Therapeutic Services. Their office specializes in the treatment of victims of child sex abuse and domestic abuse and offers counseling and intervention to individuals and families.

The purpose of the workshop was to dispel myths regarding sexual abuse, to teach the difference between natural and problematic childhood sexual behavior, to learn the signs of abuse and to teach victims how to deal with past abuse.

The workshop also examined the effects of sex abuse on the church and its members and how to minister in a church scarred by the scandal.

The safe environment training is a requirement of every diocese in the United States, as set by the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” the action plan written by the U.S. bishops in 2002 in response to the recent church sex abuse scandal.

Article 12 of the charter states in part that “safe environment programs” will be established “to provide education and training for children, youth, parents, ministers, educators, and others about ways to make and maintain a safe environment for children.”

According to Father Gary Secor, director of the Office of Clergy, safe environment training is required of “anybody in ministry with ongoing significant contact with youth” within the first 60 days of his or her ministry.

The diocese will offer safe environment training at least every 60 days to accommodate new hires and new volunteers.

Those who complete the training receive a certificate of certification, and need to be “re-certified every year,” said Crepeau.

She hopes that an Internet training website will eventually help with re-certification.

Training for children, parents

This fall, safe environment instruction will also be offered to children, kindergarten through grade 12, both in parish religious education programs and in Catholic schools. Parent meetings will precede the instruction of children.

Crepeau, who said she is spending about 95 percent of her time on the safe environment program, is preparing the parish material, including a binder and video, for this new level of instruction.

Parishes will also have the option of having a safe environment “Awareness Sunday,” Crepeau said.

Hawaii Catholic schools will have the responsibility to introduce the material into their own curriculums.

Father Secor, who has conducted several of the safe environment sessions himself, said that they have been positively received.

“I can tell you that I almost never get a negative response,” he said.

He said the training is also designed to bring “further clarity to professional boundaries in the ministerial setting between adults.”

Father Secor said that “all indications” show we will “continue to need ongoing training” on the topic of sexual abuse and misconduct.

Another related charter requirement is that the diocese establish a “victim’s assistance program” that people abused by church workers can call for guidance, counseling and referral to higher authorities.

The director of the diocesan victim’s assistance program, Joseph Bloom of Catholic Charities, said that he’s gotten nine calls since he took the job a year and a half ago.

He said the calls came from both men and women and concerned past incidents both on the mainland and in Hawaii.

The number for the diocesan victim’s assistance program is 535-1059.