PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online
ELIZABETH EISENSTADT-EVANS | COLUMNIST
A few nights ago, scrolling down my Facebook feed, I came across a chilling post shared by a friend — that of a dad putting out an all-points bulletin for his absent daughter. Although he described her in detail, down to the tattoo on her ankle, it is her face that haunts me — bright, hopeful, poised. He fears, said the father, that she’s been abducted and trafficked in another state.
It was her face that I had in mind when I called Linda Crockett, director of education and consultation for the SafeChurchSafePlaces project at Lancaster’s Samaritan Counseling Center. Crockett and I last spoke in 2012. At that time the program designed to raise awareness of child sex abuse and better protect children in congregations had been launched in nine local congregations, with the hope that the model would work in other churches across the nation.
Coming to fruition
Four years later, that hope has become a reality.
“The first few years we stayed local. Then we caught on like wildfire,” says Crockett. “I think God has kind of been nudging people (saying): ‘it’s time that those of us who are people of faith do something to stop sexual abuse of children.’ ”
In 2014, the center received funding for a pilot program that enabled them to train approximately 20 leaders in other communities around the country. The program has trained facilitators in areas as diverse as Atlanta, Sewickley (a Pittsburgh suburb) and Harlem.
The mission of the SafeChurch program, says Crockett, “is to shift the culture of congregations so that adults know how to protect children from harm in the church and the community.”
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