S ince VIRTUS ® is a comprehensive risk management program, its ultimate goal is to prevent many forms of misconduct that could occur in any Catholic communi- ty. The preventive solutions that VIRTUS ® offers depend on the wrongdoing in question. The measures offered by VIR- TUS ® for the prevention of sexual abuse rely on an innova- tive, multi-media program named Protecting God’s Children. Protecting God’s Children provides a unique opportunity for VIRTUS ® to touch and positively impact society’s fundamental barriers to prevention. It includes programs for educating adults and children, provid- ing love, compassion, and support to vic- tims, and tools for bishops, pastors, and administrators to minimize risk. As announced ear- lier this year, National Catholic has selected Praesidium, Inc., to design many of the critical components of Protecting God’s Children. Praesidium, based in Dallas, Texas, is nationally recognized in the field of abuse risk management. Praesidium provides support to organizations that serve our most vulnerable pop- ulations—children and the elderly. Praesidium in Latin means “to protect or defend from harm.” The company’s mission is to “create safe environ- ments.” Praesidium’s experts bring more than two decades of research and experience in preventing abuse. Abuse prevention and risk management are long-term responsibilities that hinge on appropriate and effective awareness, education, and training. Praesidium’s approach is to discover where the risk of abuse is hidden within an organization and to determine how to uncover it. Through their own extensive research, Praesidium’s experts have identified several elements that cause an environment to be safe or unsafe. As a result, Praesidium has developed a com- prehensive template for examining and assessing specific organizational operations. Under the direction of the VIRTUS ® Expert Consulting Team, Praesidium is contributing to the VIRTUS ® goal of creating a program designed to help prevent child sexual abuse. The center- piece of Protecting God’s Children is a two-video set devel- oped by Praesidium. One video will increase awareness about child sexual abuse, and the other will educate adults about recognizing and reporting possible abuse. In addition to the videos, Praesidium is developing two tool kits: one for screening and selection and the other for self-assessments. The VIRTUS ® awareness and education videos, screening and selection tool kit, and self-assessment tool kit created by Praesidium are scheduled for piloting and implementation in 2001. These elements will be featured in the comprehensive implementation of Protecting God’s Children that also includes web-based training, handbooks and other materials for parents, Victim Advocacy and Pastoral Case Management programs, and programs for children in both Catholic schools and religious education programs. Powerful tools to protect God’s children VIRTUS ® is the program of National Catholic designed to strengthen communities through awareness, education, and training. Published by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. • Volume 3, Number 1 • February 2001 VIRTUS ® Excellence Builds Trust COMMUNICARE COMMUNICARE ™ PRAESIDIUM, INC. Helping to protect Praesidium in Latin means “to protect or defend from harm.” The company’s mission is to “create safe environments.”
Transcript
Since VIRTUS® is a comprehensive risk managementprogram, its ultimate goal is to prevent many forms ofmisconduct that could occur in any Catholic communi-
ty. The preventive solutions that VIRTUS® offers depend onthe wrongdoing in question. The measures offered by VIR-TUS®for the prevention of sexual abuse rely on an innova-tive, multi-media program named Protecting God’s Children.
Protecting God’sChildren provides aunique opportunityfor VIRTUS® to touchand positively impactsociety’s fundamentalbarriers to prevention.It includes programs for educating adultsand children, provid-ing love, compassion,and support to vic-tims, and tools forbishops, pastors, andadministrators to minimize risk.
As announced ear-lier this year, NationalCatholic has selectedPraesidium, Inc., todesign many of thecritical components of Protecting God’s Children.Praesidium, based in Dallas, Texas, is nationally recognizedin the field of abuse risk management. Praesidium providessupport to organizations that serve our most vulnerable pop-ulations—children and the elderly.
Praesidium in Latin means “to protect or defend fromharm.” The company’s mission is to “create safe environ-ments.” Praesidium’s experts bring more than two decades of research and experience in preventing abuse.
Abuse prevention and risk management are long-termresponsibilities that hinge on appropriate and effectiveawareness, education, and training. Praesidium’s approach
is to discover where the risk of abuse is hidden within an organization and to determine how to uncover it. Throughtheir own extensive research, Praesidium’s experts haveidentified several elements that cause an environment to besafe or unsafe. As a result, Praesidium has developed a com-prehensive template for examining and assessing specificorganizational operations.
Under the directionof the VIRTUS®
Expert ConsultingTeam, Praesidium iscontributing to theVIRTUS® goal of creating a programdesigned to help prevent child sexualabuse. The center-piece of ProtectingGod’s Children is atwo-video set devel-oped by Praesidium.One video willincrease awarenessabout child sexualabuse, and the otherwill educate adultsabout recognizing and reporting possible
abuse. In addition to the videos, Praesidium is developingtwo tool kits: one for screening and selection and the otherfor self-assessments.
The VIRTUS® awareness and education videos, screeningand selection tool kit, and self-assessment tool kit created byPraesidium are scheduled for piloting and implementation in2001. These elements will be featured in the comprehensiveimplementation of Protecting God’s Children that alsoincludes web-based training, handbooks and other materialsfor parents, Victim Advocacy and Pastoral Case Managementprograms, and programs for children in both Catholicschools and religious education programs.
Powerful tools to protect God’s childrenVIRTUS® is the program of National Catholic designed to strengthen
communities through awareness, education, and training.
Published by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. • Volume 3, Number 1 • February 2001
VIRTUS®
ExcellenceBuildsTrust COMMUNICARECOMMUNICARE
™
PRAESIDIUM, INC.Helping to protect
Praesidium in Latin means “to protect or defend from harm.”
The company’s mission is to “create safe environments.”
From inception to today, VIRTUS®
has come a long way.
VIRTUS® began like so many goodideas—with identification of a problemand the courage to correct it. Like otherorganizations and communities, theCatholic community is faced withmany challenges including wrongdo-ing. But unlike so many that view com-munity wrongdoing as society’s prob-lem—a problem too big to be solved—National Catholic sought to provideanswers instead of commentary. Fromthe beginning, National Catholic hasnever wavered in its commitment tofoster positive change.
VIRTUS®: preventing and managing wrongdoing in the Church
VIRTUS® is a best practices programbased on common sense and risk man-agement principles. The first mission ofVIRTUS® is to eliminate ignorance andfear through education. VIRTUS® askseveryone to be accountable for his orher own actions and to be aware of theactions of others. It then provides toolsfor creating and maintaining a bestpractices environment including pro-grams on how to investigate and man-
age claims of wrongdoing—programssensitive to the needs of the victims as well as the rights of the accused.Through this method, VIRTUS®
provides a foundation for consistentand unbiased enforcement, measure-ment, and protection.
Child sexual abuse and the role of the Church
There are many forms of wrongdoingthat plague our society. The firstwrongdoing VIRTUS® selected to tackle is one of the most difficult toprevent and to understand—child sexu-al abuse. In the past, society ignoredchild sexual abuse. As a result, childsexual abuse has become a worldwidepublic health issue.
Abuse of a child, especially sexualabuse, is reprehensible. Unfortunately,the reprehensible nature of child sexualabuse makes many who should speakout speechless. Yet silence—silencefrom the Church, from victims andfrom bystanders—allows child sexualabuse to fester and grow.
VIRTUS® believes that the Churchplays an instrumental and pivotal rolein preventing child sexual abuse. TheChurch is a global leader with a globalvoice. And because child sexual abusestrikes at the core of Christian princi-
ples, including the principle of forgive-ness, it is the role of the Church to stepforward on behalf of the victims and the perpetrators. Undoubtedly, if the Church speaks, people listen, and the code of silence has a chance to be broken.
VIRTUS® will use the pulpit of theChurch to make people pay attention.From there, VIRTUS® will provideanswers for the inevitable question:What can I do?
Preventing child sexual abuse
VIRTUS® begins by adding the voice of the victim to the voice of theChurch. A model victim advocacy program will provide a safe and caringoutlet for victims to report abuse.Parents and other adults are educatedthrough VIRTUS® to take action when they see the signs of abuse.Parishes and religious organizations are provided policies and proceduresnecessary to enforce rules and regula-tions. Investigators of child sexualabuse are provided training on how to uncover the truth when a claim ofabuse is made.
But going beyond policies and procedures, VIRTUS® actively seeksthe involvement of every person withinthe Church community to prevent childsexual abuse. VIRTUS® will educateand train staff, volunteers, parents and others on how to identify abuseand what to do when abuse is suspect-ed. Moreover, VIRTUS® will seek to break the taboo of discussing abuse.Only through community awarenessand involvement can we prevent abuse altogether.
Grassroots involvement
Change is never easy. But to preventchild sexual abuse, we must embracenew ideas such as:
• Site and property audits to identify areas where abuse can happen.
• Peer supervision so that no adult is left alone to supervise youth events.
Joining together to protect God’s childrenPage 2, Communicare™ February 2001
• Parental inspection, even un-announced, of daycare centers.
• Child education on what is accept-able touching from strangers, friends, and relatives.
• Parent involvement in choosing school curriculum regarding rela-tionships, rape, and sexual abuse.
Each new idea that is accomplishedbrings us closer to righting the past and making a positive impact on achild’s life. VIRTUS® will ask for change, not for change’s sake, but for the sake of prevention. The VIR-TUS® call to arms will open our heartsand minds and eliminate the fear ofgetting involved. Only through individ-ual contribution can we stop child sexual abuse.
The first step
Protecting God’s Children is the firstinstallment of VIRTUS®. It begins thetransformation of how child sexualabuse is prevented and managed in theChurch community. Protecting God’sChildren is the culmination of years of
work and research and will be the cen-terpiece of National Catholic’s childsexual abuse prevention efforts.
Awareness and training videos,Internet training modules accessedthrough an online risk managementportal, and model policies and proce-dures will soon be piloted and available
for distribution. On the back page ofthis newsletter is a summary of prod-ucts and services for 2001.
The future
VIRTUS® is a living program, alwaysadapting to change, incorporating thenewest ideas, and striving to eliminatewrongdoing wherever it may be in theChurch community. Already, work isbeing performed to develop programsto eliminate violence in our schoolsand places of work. So stay tuned.We’ve come a long way, but the best is yet to come.
Victim Advocacy Program availablethis summer—Dioceses are currentlypiloting the VIRTUS® Victim AdvocacyProgram. Advocate training is scheduledfor mid-February in Dallas. Drawingfrom our experience with these three dioceses, we’ll make final adjustments to the program and make it available toshareholders this summer.
Pilot of Protecting God’s Childrenbegins this summer—Phase I of VIRTUS® is entitled, Protecting God’sChildren. Pilots of the full program beginthis summer. The components that will bepiloted include: awareness and trainingvideos (two) with accompanying writtenmaterials; web modules (four); a screen-ing and selection tool kit; a self-assess-ment tool kit; video training for parentsof small children; audit tools; brochures,posters, promotional announcements,turnkey implementation kits—everythingyour diocese, parish, school, religiousorganization, or facility will need.
Web portal to replace VIRTUS®
website—The VIRTUS® website, as we know it, is scheduled for a facelift.Soon, it will be converted to a multi-functional web portal. You’ll access thenew portal through the same web address(www.virtus.org), and it will provide youaccess to the same information currentlyavailable—such as downloadable andonline copies of the VIRTUS® newslet-ters and training scenarios. However, thenew portal will include a library of riskmanagement articles, workplace-relatedpolls, databases, training, self-assessmentaudits, management tools, and links tohundreds of other workplace-related websites. The new portal is expected tobe available by this summer.
New web-based training being developed—In conjunction with the
piloting of Phase I, Protecting God’sChildren, four new web-based trainingmodules are scheduled for release on the new web portal. A central module is targeted for every adult Catholic and addresses the Core Principles ofVIRTUS® and the fundamental conceptsof stewardship in the Church. The otherthree modules complement and enhancethe awareness and training videos onChild Sexual Abuse. As each phase ofVIRTUS® unfolds, new web moduleswill be added to www.virtus.org—thenew VIRTUS® web portal.
What comes after Phase I?—Violencein our society has increased—or at leastwe seem to hear about it more often than ever before. It is one of the majorrisks to our shareholders. Strategic plan-ning has begun on the second phase ofVIRTUS® with a heavy focus on vio-lence among our youth—how to recog-nize the signs of potential violence, howto train our youth to cope with violence,and what can be done to prevent violencefrom impacting our Church and faithcommunity. We are currently assemblinga team of experts to direct the develop-ment of the content of Phase II.
What else is on the horizon?—Risk isnot the kind of thing that can be eliminat-ed completely, but there’s always room to improve the way we manage both risksand incidents. Each phase of VIRTUS®
addresses a significant risk or liabilityexposure that is impacting the CatholicChurch, religious organizations or facili-ties, or the Catholic faith community.What risk(s) do you contend with mostoften? What risk(s) would you like to see addressed by VIRTUS®? ContactNational Catholic at our toll-free number,(877) 486-2774, or send an email to [email protected]. Wewant your input.
What’s the current status of VIRTUS® initiatives?VIRTUS®Ad Hoc CommitteeThe National Catholic Risk Retention Group,Inc., (National Catholic) Board of Directorsselected an Ad Hoc Committee to overseedevelopment of the VIRTUS® program.
ChairmanJoseph FrankArchdiocese of Newark
MembersReverend Edward J. ArsenaultDiocese of Manchester
Michael J. Bemi, CPCU, ARM, ARePresident and CEOThe National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc.
Maryellen ConnorDiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph
Staff and Advisory MembersDouglas W. GrundThe National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc.
Peter PersuittiMunich-American RiskPartners
Project CoordinatorsSharon W. Doty, J.D.THE AGOS GROUP, LLC
Alinda F. Jones, J.D.THE AGOS GROUP, LLC
VIRTUS® Steering CommitteeNational Catholic has invited internationalexperts from a variety of organizations and disci-plines to participate in a Steering Committee—to provide guidance to the VIRTUS® Ad HocCommittee.
