Safe Environments Newsletter - Diocese of Savannah

Safe Environments Newsletter Catholic Diocese of Savannah

New Year, Old Business On behalf of Bishop Hartmayer, we wish to thank you very much for the preparation work you did for the 2015 audit, along with the hospitality found at the locations that received an on-site visit.

Director of Religious Education. St. Joseph Church in Jesup was next. Both record examination and questions were required from the pastor and Safe Environment Administrator.

Visits began with St. Francis Xavier Church and School in Brunswick. While there the records were also examined for Nativity of Our Lady Mission. St. William Church on St. Simons Island was next. At that location the auditors focused on interviews with the pastor, the Safe Environment Administrator and the

St. Michael Church on Tybee Island was also visited. The auditors were impressed that a member of the Parish Council attended with the other personnel, reinforcing the parish’s commitment to the program.

January 25, 2016 Volume 1, Issue 3

town, but the parish secretary was able to answer any and all questions, as well as provide proof the Safe Environment Program was well advertised. The auditors found that compliance with the Charter at the local level was successful. Keep up the good work! -

Inside this issue: New Year, Old Bus.

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Local Administrator Corner 1-2 VIRTUS Facilitator Corner 2 Resources, Promotion and Communication

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Joan Altmeyer

An unscheduled visit was made to St. Stephen, First Martyr Church in Hinesville. The pastor was out of

Local Administrator Corner Reporting Guidelines Even though auditors focus on all elements of the Charter they may decide to examine some elements more closely than others each year. For 2015, those elements were Reporting and VIRTUS

Training Bulletins. It is important that the toll-free hotline for the Diocese is frequently listed in bulletins as well as social media platforms and other forms of communication. A

simple statement will suffice “Office for the Protection of Children and Young People, Toll free reporting hotline: (888) 357-5530.” You can also vary the message published by copying any tweet found @diosavCYP.

The October 2015 Newsletter also suggested the resources at netsmartzkids.org to meet these needs.

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Local Administrator Corner VIRTUS Training Bulletins One of the best ways to educate for retention is to offer training in continued, regular, and short segments. VIRTUS monthly training bulletins do just that, reinforcing what is learned during the three hour session. While examining records at the Catholic Pastoral Center, the auditors did randomly submit the names of ten priests and ten permanent deacons and requested to see how many training bulletins each had read, and if anyone was past due on reading their assigned bulletins. Enforcement of reading training bulletins is difficult, but with the help of the pastor or school principal, the importance must be made. Anyone who works or volunteers and has intense ongoing contact with youth, or anyone who supervises other adults, as well as all ordained and active clergy and men in formation for the priesthood or diaconate are required to read the bulletins. A list of those who must read bulletins can be found at bit.ly/1lLigvK. It is important to note that each month the VIRTUS database will send an automated email out to everyone who is flagged for bulletins to remind them they have one to read.

At this time about 75% of the (Arch)Dioceses in our country use VIRTUS as their training tool and most require everyone to read the bulletins. Therefore, the email is sent to millions of people at once from VIRTUS and will fall into a recipient’s spam or junk filter unless the address [email protected] is added to their ‘Safe Senders’ list. If you have administrative privleges on the VIRTUS database, you can run a training bulletin report to see who is reading their bulletins. The Director of Safe Environment can also produce a report for you upon request. NOTE: Some employees or volunteers are at multiple locations. They might require bulletins for one location but not the next. Example: Jane Smith is a paid coach at St. Joseph School in Macon, but she is also a Eucharistic Minister at St. Joseph Church. The training report for St. Joseph Church will reflect her read bulletin record, but can be ignored by the Church as she is not required to read bulletins as a Eucharistic Minister. The School will be responsible for tracking the bulletins read due to her role of paid coach.

VIRTUS Facilitator Corner VIRTUS Training Bulletins During the audit period of July 1, 2014 through June 30, 2015 a total of 1,782 adults attended one of 145 VIRTUS Protecting God’s Children for Adults training sessions. Eighteen of the sessions were facilitated in Spanish and for the first year, two sessions were facilitated in Vietnamese! Thank you for your gift of facilitating these sessions. Each year this office estimates that fewer people will need training yet the number continues to grow! Though you already do this, please place more emphasis on the VIRTUS monthly training bulletin requirement as you finish up the discussion at the end of the second training video. Our auditors last

year focused on who is required to read the bulletins and if they are being read. The easiest way to present this is to let your attendees know that if they fulfill a position of leadership, they will need to read the bulletins. Please let them know to make certain when they receive the email notification from VIRTUS they need to save it to their ‘Safe Senders’ list. As facilitators you already know the value of the information sent and the short amount of time required each month to meet this obligation.

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VIRTUS Facilitator Corner VIRTUS Session Design Sometimes it is difficult to make a session stretch to the three-hour design. Sometimes it is difficult to limit the session to that time. We have all encountered times when we have had very few participants or many more than we anticipated, as well as participant groups who were too shy to add to the discussion as well as groups who discussed much more than necessary. The VIRTUS session has been structured in a way to reach the educational needs of all attendees. Everyone has a primary way of effectively learning, and each person’s way will differ from another’s. VISUAL learners will best retain information presented on the videos. KINESTHETIC learners benefit from writing what is taught in the workbooks. AUDIO learners retain information through the discussion portions of the class. READING learners benefit from the typography in the video, the workbook, and the monthly training bulletins.

Ideally all sessions would meet the structure but we know that does not happen. If you have attendees who are hesitant to open discussion, find a way to relax the group. I find that when no one raises their hand, I’ll point to an empty section of the room and say “Joan? What is your reaction to the video?” Then I will answer my own question. Classes usually find the humor of this and are much more responsive. Please also make certain no one person dominates the discussion. To help in this situation, I’ll divide the room into sections and only call on one section to answer a question, limiting the questions answered by the group that the vocal participant is located at. Always remember that every participant’s opinion is important and acknowledge their input as well as thank them for sharing. Thank you for all that you do to help us with this important ministry!

A length of three hours has also been determined to be an ideal length for the learning process; long enough to cover the material and short enough not to overwhelm attendees.

Office for the Protection of Children & Young People Joan Altmeyer, Director The Catholic Pastoral Center at St. Mary’s Home 2170 E. Victory Drive Savannah, GA 31404 Phone: 912.201.4100.4074 Fax: 912.201.9193 E-mail: [email protected]

Do you have questions or suggestions for topics in upcoming Newsletters? Send me your input and I will cover it for you!

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