Child Protection Newsletter

Issue #6

July 30, 2019

Keep Our Children SAFE!

What Constitutes Child Abuse?

According to our Archdiocesan Decree on Child Protection, child abuse occurs when:

Engaging in any (sexual) activity as outlined in Ohio Revised Code 2907;
Endangering a child;
Denying to a child, as a means of punishment, proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical care, or other care necessary to a child for the child's health;
Using restraint that causes a child pain or injury;
Administering prescription drugs or psychotropic medication to a child without parental approval and ongoing supervision by a licensed physician;
Providing alcoholic beverages or controlled substances to a child (excluding the Blessed Sacrament);
Committing any act, other than by accidental means or through self-defense, that results in injury or death to a child;
Inflicting physical or mental injury that threatens to harm a child's health or welfare;
Possessing, viewing, distributing, or reproducing child pornography (includes sexting).

If you witness—or even suspect—child abuse in any form, call 911 immediately!

Then, if the abuse took place on parish property or if it involves any member of our parish community, contact Steve Morris at 937-401-0521 so that protective measures can be put in place. Every report will be investigated by the police, Child Protective Services, and/or St. Charles Parish and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati! Remember, you are a key part of our Child Protection team!

Keeping Your Account Active

It is our policy at St. Charles Borromeo Parish to inactivate Virtus ® user accounts if the account holder gets four months behind on reading their Child Protection bulletins. Upon request, we will reactivate user accounts provided the account holder is no more than six months behind. If an account holder requests to be activated again and they are behind by more than six months but less than 12 months, the account holder will be required to take a 90-minute online refresher course to be reactivated. Account holders that are more than a year behind will be required to take our three-hour class again to be activated. Maintaining an active Virtus account is required to be an approved adult volunteer at any diocesan location and it is a condition of employment for ALL St. Charles employees.

We Take Child Protection Seriously!

Thank you for keeping your Virtus ® accounts current and for being a key part of keeping our children safe.

List of Approved Volunteers

When organizing an official St. Charles activity involving children, please check the list below to make sure that your adult volunteers are approved to serve with children. For legal reasons, St. Charles Parish cannot publish a list of people who are prohibited from volunteering around children due to abuse. If an adult volunteer is not on the approved volunteer list, it could be for a variety of reasons. Most of the time it means that the person got behind on their bulletins and became inactive. If a v olunteer is not on the list below, please contact Steve Morris so he can help resolve the issue. If your volunteer has not attended a Virtus ® class, please have them visit www.virtusonline.org to create an account and sign up for a Child Protection training class. Training times and locations can be found under the training tab by clicking on the Live Training link.

Approved Volunteers (pdf)

Approved Volunteer (xls)

I f something doesn't seem right—let us know!

Stephen B. Morris

Business Manager

937-401-0521 (direct)

smorris@stcharles-kettering.org

St. Charles Borromeo Parish | www.stcharles-kettering.org