PREVENTION STARTS WITH AWARENESS
As reports of child sexual abuse continue to appear in headlines, parents are seeking resources to better protect children from sexual abuse. With 60 million sexual abuse survivors living in the United States, nearly 1 in 5 Americans have experienced child sexual abuse personally. Ministries serve as an excellent resource to equip and empower parents in a Christ-based environment.
The MinistrySafe Parent Training provides:
- Critical facts and information allowing parents to recognize the offender’s ‘grooming process’ before a child is targeted for abuse
- Methods to communicate boundaries with children
- Strategies to reduce risk, respond to inappropriate behavior and report abuse
The risk of child sexual abuse is not intuitive. Instead, parents must make an intentional effort to replace misconceptions with good information.
MinistrySafe provides training to thousands of ministries, training more than 50,000 child-serving staff members, live and online, every month. We developed Parent Training to equip parents to better understand child sexual abuse and better protect their own children. Sexual abusers have no visual profile — but can be recognized by their behavior.
Parent Training walks through common misconceptions about sexual abuse and sexual abusers, abuser characteristics, the abuser’s grooming process and common grooming behaviors — from a parent’s perspective. The purpose is to equip parents with better information, including questions they should be asking in the programs or activities where their child spends time, including sleepovers, sports involvement and peer-to-peer issues.
APRIL – CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. At MinistrySafe, we can think of no better way to prevent sexual abuse than equipping parents. During April, MinistrySafe’s two-part Parent Training is available online at no cost. Parent Training may be accessed at MinistrySafe.com/APRIL and MinistrySafe members may send Parent Training links at no cost through the MinistrySafe online Control Panel.
Learn more about MinistrySafe (and Abuse Prevention Systems) or watch a short Demo of the MinistrySafe online system.
Kimberlee Norris and Gregory Love are partners in the Fort Worth, Texas law firm of Love & Norris and founders of MinistrySafe and Abuse Prevention Systems providing child sexual abuse expertise to child-serving organizations worldwide. After representing victims of child sexual abuse for more than two decades, Love and Norris saw recurring, predictable patterns in predatory behavior. MinistrySafe/Abuse Prevention Systems grew out of their desire to place proactive tools into the hands of child-serving professionals.
Love and Norris teach the only graduate-level course on Preventing Sexual Abuse in Ministry Contexts as Visiting Faculty at Dallas Theological Seminary.