WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Informer
Written by Michelle Booth Cole, Special to The Informer
Friday, 11 May 2012
When I heard about the allegations of child sexual abuse at a local church-run daycare center and saw on the news a mother asking how she could ever feel comfortable sending her child there again, it took me immediately back to what happened at my daughters’ school in 2008.
In the spring of 2008, my eldest daughter’s third-grade teacher at Beauvoir, the National Cathedral elementary school, was alleged to have sexually abused students at the school. The revelation was shocking to many. But it confirmed what I see regularly in my work: perpetrators can lurk anywhere, even in our midst.
Beauvoir’s response to the crisis offers a guide for daycare centers and any organizations that serve children. Beauvoir’s head of school, Paula Carreiro, responded with integrity and accountability. She took every possible step to minimize the risk that such a crime would ever happen again at Beauvoir.
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