We are eager to offer updates, share best practices, and help on-board seasoned practitioners and new personnel with the new Safe Church, Safe Communities modules developed by the General Convention Task Force to Develop Model Anti-Sexual Harassment Policies & Safe Church Training.

Training and Spanish

As the traditional program year unfurls this fall, the Safe Church office is actively working to get the new courses translated into Spanish for use within U.S. dioceses. Our plan also includes future work on contextualizing policy and practice in our non-U.S. and non-English speaking dioceses. We will continue to work with translation professionals and Praesidium developers to have Spanish versions of all eight courses by the new year.

Our Training Manual is in it's final draft form and will be shared on a limited basis at the upcoimg meeting of Diocesan Youth Ministers for feedback. Tim Spannaus, one of our lead educators on the Task Force and a Deacon from Michigan, and Eric Travis, another Task Force Member and Youth Minister from Ohio, will be helping with some pilot online training sessions in October. Initially these sessions will be limited and invitation-only for diocesan level Safe Church trainers and administrators. When registration goes live later this month, those on the Diocesan lists will receive a specific notice with an invitation to sign up. Once we have a few more Primary Trainers ready to roll, we will begin scheduling more trainings more widely. Regular evaluation with the intention of continuous learning and improvements will be at the core of our training work. We look forward to building training cohorts within the network who can provide critical feedback to the Safe Church Manager and the Council of Advice.

If you need to correct your status or want to add names and emails to our network, please use the following link: 

Safe Church, Safe Communities Contact Sign-up

Haven't updated your local Diocesan Policy yet? Click these links to the Model Policies for the Protection of Children and Youth and Vulnerable Adults and share with your diocesan chancellor and Safe Church Administrator. Both policies are also available in Spanish.

From the Manager

Congratulations and welcome to members of the new Council of Advice for Safe Church, Safe Communties. This growing group has met twice so far to help advise and support the work of the new Safe Church office. Currently they are working on creating the Model Policy Self Audit process as well as helping to establish training standards. They will meet in person for the first time in December at the Formation Department's joint Councils meeting. I look forward to sharing a photograph and everyone's name and location at that time.

As the late summer concludes I have been impressed by the number of parishes and dioceses engaging in training. It is also very clear to me that many places are not up to speed with Model Policy Updates, and many have no point-person for training recommendations. I am also aware that many Diocesan Administrators have been relying upon Praesidium as their primary training database for tracking their learners' status. Praesidium Academy reports are equipped to do this. But those engaged in group training, whether online or in person, are finding limitations in the lack of transcripts available for those individuals. I am aware of this gap in tracking and am working on possible accomodations with our Praesidium account manager. I make no promises. Technically our contract is to deliver training - not to manage a learner database. That is the responsibility of each diocese/institution. And, we will see what we can do. I very much appreciate your ongoing feedback and patience.

I am heading out to various conferences and look forward to greeting you at the Diocesan Youth Ministers’ gathering in Arizona this month, the National Association of Episcopal Schools' Biennial Conference in San Antonio in November, and at Forma in Virginia in January. Don’t miss registration deadlines for these great opportunities for networking and education!

Please let me know what questions you have and make sure to watch for updates at www.episcopalchurch.org/safe-church and in regular emails and notices.

Blessings on your Autumn!

Bronwyn

Bronwyn Clark Skov, Manager

Safe Church, Safe Communities

Bskov@episcopalchurch.org

646-242-1421

Office Hours    Summer 2022

Tuesday           8:00 – 4:00 pm CT

Wednesday      10:30 am – 6:30 pm CT

Thursday          9:00 am – Noon CT