THE VIRTUS PROGRAM IN THE CLEVELAND DIOCESE

I was wondering if anyone else had run into the Virtus program.

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This is from the Archdiocese of Detroit website:

Joining Together to Protect God's Children
Sex Abuse Prevention Programs Combine Best Practices with Continuous Improvement

The Archdiocese of Detroit is among the nation's leaders in responding to the child sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church and is well on the way to fully implementing the Protecting God's Children™ programs and other elements of the VIRTUS® programs. These programs were developed over the last five years by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc. (National Catholic), a not-for-profit organization that provides risk control services to approximately one-third of the Catholic dioceses across the country.

In 1998, the National Catholic board appointed an ad hoc committee to work with the nation's premier child sexual abuse experts to develop prevention and response programs.

The Diocese has been laying the groundwork for several months and began implementing the Protecting God's Children programs in March 2003—a process that will take several more months to complete. The Diocese will train local program facilitators, clergy and staff, and then will broaden the program to include others throughout the faith community. The Diocese expects to provide appropriate training to everyone who has access to children in the local, Catholic faith community.

Michael Bemi, president and CEO of National Catholic, said the company is working with many dioceses and religious communities across the country to help resolve the child sexual abuse crisis—beginning at the grassroots level. "Our awareness and training programs are based on an approach that calls on every adult in our communities to become a protector of children," Bemi said. "Our goal is to help every parish, school, and community fulfill its potential as a safe haven for children."

The programs utilize a "continuous improvement" model—something the Archdiocese of Detroit will monitor the progress and track the ongoing training of its clergy, staff, and volunteers. The purpose of the continuous improvement model is to ensure that dioceses and other organizations track their progress as they implement the programs; then information from the implementation is used as guidance to identify and further address areas that are less than satisfactory. Continuous improvement is combined with the "best practice" standard as the foundation of all the VIRTUS and Protecting God's Children programs.

Jack McCalmon, National Catholic's director of VIRTUS programs and services, said, "The best practices approach includes effective protocols, procedures, and methods for preventing and responding to wrongdoing. And, it is through the best practices standard that a diocese can best emerge from sexual misconduct allegations or from any other crisis and create ministry and work environments where wrongdoing is not tolerated and the care and safety of each person is a priority.

"Best practices for preventing child sexual abuse requires not only screening and selection procedures but also strong training that is interactive and continuous, so it can actually change behavior."

McCalmon said that training must be monitored and evaluated to determine:

§ who has and has not trained,

§ whether the training was effective, and

§ whether the trainer and format were effective.

"Because people learn differently, the standard requires that training be provided in different formats," said McCalmon. "This includes written, visual, and auditory formats and multiple modalities, such as seminars, videos, books, and web-based training courses." And, the first step in the process is broad public awareness.

The program requires that clergy, staff, and volunteers participate in the live training sessions as a prerequisite to ongoing training provided via the Internet. National Catholic provides the ongoing training on its risk control website, www.virtus.org. Anyone can access the website, at no cost, and see new content each week, including articles, interactive scenarios, personal risk assessments, poll questions, and other information on the prevention of child sexual abuse and other forms of wrongdoing.

In addition to the "free" content, some who attend the live training sessions are provided access to additional monthly training specific to their individual roles in the faith community. Adults who go through the program, for example, may be selected to receive two training bulletins per month that focus on the responsibilities that all adults should assume in helping to protect children. Each training bulletin takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete and includes an interactive training scenario to ensure that readers think through the process of applying each training topic to a real-life situation.

Bemi said the programs can't provide the desired level of help and hope unless each of us, as Christians, takes responsibility for ourselves and for those around us. "The Protecting God's Children programs do not require any one individual to provide a super-human contribution," he said. "Rather, the endeavor calls on each of us, as individuals, to learn the warning signs of abuse and to promptly report suspicious behavior to appropriate authorities."

Bemi said the real value of the Protecting God's Children programs goes beyond simply recognizing warning signs and responding to possible abuse. "In fact, the greatest contribution any of us can make is to emphasize appropriate relationships and appropriate behaviors to those around us," he stated. "And, as usual, the best way to lead is by example.

"By learning how perpetrators select and groom their victims, and by modifying our own relationships where necessary, we can influence a community-wide shift in behavior. This behavioral shift will make it extremely difficult for child abusers to go undetected."

Also, in Detroit, there is a requirement that all volunteers agree to have a background check done on themselves prior to working with children in any capacity.

Hope this helps.

From what I've been able to gather, the VIRTUS program and others like it are as follows:

"We've had some problems with homosexual priests abusing teen-aged boys, so in order to combat this, we're going to require that every lay person who works with children as part of their duties for the diocese has to undergo a background check. Furthermore, we're going to require that all your kids undergo our "talking about touching" program where a panel of "sexperts" will teach your children the latest techniques so that they know how to respond to sex abuse in the future. Any questions? Yes, you in the back."

"What are you going to do about the homosexual predators that remain in the priesthood?"

"This is not about homosexuals and for you to even suggest it means that you are a homophobic bigot. This seminar is over."

The Milwaukee Archdiocese has implemented the same program. My take on it is that it's a way for participating Sees to (please excuse the expression!) cover their legal butts. Period. The "training" is a farce. For example: participants are e-mailed at regular intervals reminding them to go to the VIRTUS website to read an article, consider a hypothetical situation, and then answer a breathtakingly obvious multiple-choice question (SO obvious, in fact, that most can be answered correctly without even reading the accompanying material). And that is the extent of the "ongoing training." Any discussion of the John Jay report is glaringly absent, as is any consideration of the problem of homosexuality in the priesthood. As a matter of fact, the program goes to great lengths to distance itself from identifying homosexual activity by priests as having contributed in any significant way to the scandal. And this in an archdiocese where many among the clergy and parish staffs think it's a great idea to haul Weakland out of retirement to confer the sacrament of Confirmation. Go figure.

This behavioral shift will make it extremely difficult for child abusers to go undetected.

Un-detection has never been a problem, even child abuse has never been a problem. The behavioral shift is designed to drive the public attention into the woods, and to protect homosexuals in the clergy at all costs.

I was told to take this as a CCD assistant in the Detroit Diocese. I and other moms like me are not the problem (in Cleveland, the problem is Pilla). I opted out of CCD for next year.

I'm supposed to take this because I work in the nursery. Remember all those new stories about middle-aged moms running amok in the toddler nursery?

Not that "Virtus" is a totally bad program, but it sure misses the point of the abuse issues in the Church today.

That's just the thing Lady, this is a CYA for the diocese and nothing more. We had this program put in place as the pastor of the main parish in our area was being prosecuted for kiddie porn.
Now who should be taking these courses???

I wonder how many CCD teachers and other volunteers are no longer volunteering because of this -- especially the required background checks?

Honestly, I haven't known a person who has had a problem with the backround check. I had to do that to be a GS leader.
However, the idea that they were doing a backround check THEN I had to give up a Saturday with my kids bugged me.

I've been a member of the same parish for 20 years. The suggestion that background checks are necessary offends me.

Oh I agree!
If I had been in my home parish where I went to eight years of school (starting in 1967) and my Great Uncle was the pastor for years, it would have offended me too.
I left there and moved to MI seven years ago. I had no problem with it.

We have Virtus in Philly. I had to attend since I have volunteered to coach my grandson's basketball team (Heaven help me). My wife, daughters, and daughters in law went in the fall. The program here has changed slightly since it began.

All "training" takes place on one weeknight evening. We were shown three videos and a couple of Power Point Slides. They go out of their way to claim abuse is not a homosexual problem. Other than that, the program was complete common sense and an utter waste of time. People were doing crosswords, reading the newspaper and sleeping.

There is a very short question and answer period, and it seems there are always some people who need to ask questions no matter how simplistic or idiotic the material is.

I made sure to fill out my evaluation form citing their own statistics on percentages of abuse and homosexual abusers. Unless the general population is comprised of 30% homosexuals, their claim that homosexuals are less likely to be abusers is absurd. My friend, (and assistant coach) had come with me to the training and was curious as to what I could possibly be writing, when I told him he sat back down and wrote essentially the same complaint.

There is in development a Virtus program aimed at the children. It is my understanding that the parents will be allowed to opt their children out of it, which won't help unless a majority of parents opt out - God knows what the kids will say to each other on the school yard.

I didn't mind the criminal record check - though I don't see why they can't limit it to child abuse offenses.