A few months ago I was invited to be part of a youth protection training for stake council leaders. I had five minutes. What would you share in only five minutes? I focused on "reasonable suspicion." I still wonder to this day, if one of any number of family friends might have acted upon their reasonable suspicion, maybe we would have been spared several years of abuse. The information on the slides below is what I shared. I wish this training went beyond the dozen people in the room. From what I've seen, it hasn't really trickled down further. I'm trying not to get disappointed with how little our church does to protect women and children. I want to inspire and empower others to want to improve the safety of our communities, not to shame them into it or verbally attack them into it.
There has been a social media outcry of #metoo in the Mormon world lately, enough that it has woken me up to want to be a part of it. We do not do enough to protect victims! Our church communities are not safe enough yet. I'm only sorry I've been so passive about it this past year. Maybe this strong outcry will help move us toward better protection efforts in our church. I can hope at least.
Please share this vital youth protection info with anyone you can. We can especially share this info with the children and youth in our lives. It is statistically more probable that children and youth confess abuse to their peers before adults. We can empower our youth to listen to their friends and to report any reasonable suspicion of abuse.
If we can save even one soul from continued abuse and heartache, why wouldn't we?
❤️ Andrea