A child’s safety is the primary concern of most parents. Parents purchase approved car seats, check warning labels on toys and watch their children carefully when they are outside playing.
According to Bob Dewhurst, director of development for Alabama Baptist Children’s Homes & Family Ministries, most parents do not realize that their children are at risk of sexual abuse.
Statistically, child sexual abuse is the most unreported crime, yet about 10 percent of Alabama’s 20,084 prison inmates are sex offenders. About 1,000 of them are child sex offenders.
“Our churches are the most vulnerable for this type of crime against our children because our churches are places of trust,” said Dewhurst. “Pedophiles will seek the place of least resistance and churches are an easy target.”
The Children’s Home has developed a workshop to help prevent child sexual abuse. The three-hour workshop, titled “Child Sexual Abuse, Protecting Your Children and Your Community,” is available at no cost to the host church or community group. Leaders are Children’s Homes professionals with extensive backgrounds in law enforcement, social work and family counseling.
Having served with military law enforcement and having developed a child sexual abuse prevention program for the U.S. Army, Dewhurst was still concerned about this issue several years after joining the Children’s Homes staff. He collected and researched 90 newspaper and magazine articles about child sexual abuse in Alabama. After sorting through the duplicates, he found 30 different stories related to child sexual abuse cases in the state.
More disturbing than the number of abuse cases were the people charged or arrested for the crimes. Dewhurst recalled that a fireman, a city councilman, a baseball coach, a teacher, a pastor, a youth minister and a minister of music were among the accused. They were all pillars in their communities.
Dewhurst and his Children’s Home team have presented more than 60 of the “Protecting Your Children” workshops. He said initial feedback from these events has been shock by church staff and parents that their children could be in danger in their own churches.
The results of the workshops, however, have been mostly positive. Church leaders have developed policies and procedures to better protect children and youth from sexual abuse. These policies have been established for Sunday School teachers, day-care workers, youth volunteers and other help.
“The most important rule you can have is the two-person rule,” explains Dewhurst. Always have more than one worker in a room with your children at all times. It protects your children, but it also protects your workers and church from being falsely accused.
First Baptist Church, Gulf Shores, Pastor Lloyd Stilley said his church has sponsored the workshop twice in the last three years. “We always have representatives from other church denominations attend because of the thoroughness of the presentation,” he said. “We found the information very informative and it led to some changes in our church procedure and bylaws. We were not driven by any incident to hold this workshop but rather from the position of caution,” he said, explaining that the church’s location near the beach sometimes attracts people who may not be coming into the church doors for the right reasons. “The Children’s Home staff presenters address many issues about child safety, not just predatorial ones,” he said.
For more information about the free workshop and to schedule one or more workshops, call Bob Dewhurst toll free at 1-888-720-8805 or e-mail dewhurst@abchome.org
(ABCH, TAB)
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