Dear Readers:
When a pastor manipulates an abuse response team in order to get them to meet with a complainant about allegations without council knowledge or approval, there is derailment of process.
When the abuse response team meets with a complainant about allegations without the accused council’s request or knowledge, there is derailment of process.
When chair of the team requests to meet with the accused – and the chair admits to the accused this has nothing to do with sexual or physical abuse allegations – there is a derailment of process.
When the team was directed by the CIC to stop their work, but the team continued anyway –and sent out a letter of findings - process is derailed.
Now the abuse response team process is the abuser.
Sadly, this happened.
Because of this - and there may be other cases similar to it - I ask you to consider challenging the denomination about a different way to do the investigative/fact-finding process. One idea would be to go to an "Outside the Denomination" Professional Investigative/fact-finding Services. Here are some reasons why:
1. Increased objectivity. Since many of our people and churches know each other, teams often run into difficulty with objectivity because of how we are related to one another. Effective outcomes and better recommendations for both the accused and the complainant are more likely when objectivity is present. Using an outside of the denomination process could increase objectivity.
2. Reduced liability. When a professional team is hired by a church, mistakes with the process are not charged to the abuse response teams. Mistakes are instead held by those who provided the services. Therefore, this would reduce the possibility of our teams and churches from being sued. Outside the denomination process could reduce liability.
3. Reduced cost of the running of the Abuse Prevention Office. Because there would be no teams, there would be no expenses for the director to do trainings and re-trainings, including plane, car, hotel, rentals, and other. Costs for professional services would be channeled by another means. Pastoral ministries would be saving themselves some money.
4. Reduced time and energy. The maintaining of teams, with the current number at about 20 and with the potential of it being more, is too difficult to do, especially when team members change over time. Let the professionals do it and pay them for it.
5. Increased confidentiality. Because outside services are used, it is very unlikely that the investigative process would become a source of slander, libel, or breach of confidentiality. This would actually make the process safer – something we are striving to do - to make church and its processes safe.
6. Professional, competent services are needed for such crucial and critical work. A little 20-hour training does not adequately equip or prepare team members to handle the important work of investing abuse allegations. No person “gets it” by doing a little training, having a few conversations, read an article, and then be equipped to handle abuse allegations.
A different way of stating it would be:
1. Human nature wants to believe the worst. There are too many preconceived ideas about what happened before anything has been determined. Our human nature wants to quickly believe the bad and wrong of others and once that happens, ministry for the person (accused) is often over. Trust is lost for the accused even if the party never did anything wrong.
2. Teams run a high risk of being sued. Teams, because of their incompetence and ill-equipped and ill-trained background, run a high risk of being sued. Their failure to understand how liability works and what typical issues can lead to lawsuits increases their possibility of being sued. When a team (and the director) fails to follow Synod-adopted process for investigations and defamation has occurred, you can be assured litigation will soon follow.
3. Poor stewardship. Monies for training and retraining have reached a place where we need to question stewardship. Wasting money on a project that has shown itself not to meet a good enough level of success calls us as Christians to stop and evaluate about what we are really doing.
4. Abuse is a complex issue. Abuse has so many areas and avenues for understanding. Spending time and energy on something that has not met enough success is a lost cause. We could better use that time and energy to educate church leaders and members about the subject of abuse in hopes of helping a greater number of people. Let’s put our energy into something that actually has better and greater results.
5. Confidentiality in the CRC is a big problem. Confidentiality is often non-existent in the CRC. From denominational personnel to team members to pastors to councils, we struggle with silencing confidential information of others. This again can lead to defamation. This leads to the church becoming abusive again – and the betrayal of trust comes on a whole new level.
6. Investigations of allegations are a critical and crucial matter. Lives and futures are in the hands of team members who have at times shown themselves to be incompetent and ill-equipped to do this work. A little 20-hour training will never prove itself worthy of service in comparison to professionals who are trained in this field of expertise and who know what this is all about.
7. Frivolous allegations. Just as there are attempts to do frivolous lawsuits, so are there attempts by dysfunctional people, usually women, to bring forth frivolous allegations. Their need for attention and their skewed perceptions, (such as "he flirts with me or came on to me") usually from women who have been sexually abused as children, will be decreased and even eliminated when the council has to decide if they need to hire the outside resource to investigate. Along with this, if the council chooses to hire the outside investigative services, professionals can pick out a Borderline Personality Disorder Woman easily - and will be equipped to deal with her dysfunction far better and more effectively then teams would. Also chances are that there will be less attempts for Borderline Woman to manipulate the system because professionals can recognize their manipulation and address such behavior appropriately.
If the argument – and I have heard this – is that councils would more likely not use an outside source because it is not as easily accessible, then we need to ask -- - - what is better?
to use our own response system (which cannot guarantee safety and could show itself to be abusive)
vs.
using a professional service (which would be safer ) which councils may less likely utilize because of a lack of convenience
vs.
other ideas that need to be explored
Excellent book. Stops the enabling approach - gets at the problem approach and stops the "give" just because we think that is the answer to poverty and problems.
Posted in: Abuse Victims Task Force: Discussion
Dear Readers:
When a pastor manipulates an abuse response team in order to get them to meet with a complainant about allegations without council knowledge or approval, there is derailment of process.
When the abuse response team meets with a complainant about allegations without the accused council’s request or knowledge, there is derailment of process.
When chair of the team requests to meet with the accused – and the chair admits to the accused this has nothing to do with sexual or physical abuse allegations – there is a derailment of process.
When the team was directed by the CIC to stop their work, but the team continued anyway –and sent out a letter of findings - process is derailed.
Now the abuse response team process is the abuser.
Sadly, this happened.
Because of this - and there may be other cases similar to it - I ask you to consider challenging the denomination about a different way to do the investigative/fact-finding process. One idea would be to go to an "Outside the Denomination" Professional Investigative/fact-finding Services. Here are some reasons why:
1. Increased objectivity. Since many of our people and churches know each other, teams often run into difficulty with objectivity because of how we are related to one another. Effective outcomes and better recommendations for both the accused and the complainant are more likely when objectivity is present. Using an outside of the denomination process could increase objectivity.
2. Reduced liability. When a professional team is hired by a church, mistakes with the process are not charged to the abuse response teams. Mistakes are instead held by those who provided the services. Therefore, this would reduce the possibility of our teams and churches from being sued. Outside the denomination process could reduce liability.
3. Reduced cost of the running of the Abuse Prevention Office. Because there would be no teams, there would be no expenses for the director to do trainings and re-trainings, including plane, car, hotel, rentals, and other. Costs for professional services would be channeled by another means. Pastoral ministries would be saving themselves some money.
4. Reduced time and energy. The maintaining of teams, with the current number at about 20 and with the potential of it being more, is too difficult to do, especially when team members change over time. Let the professionals do it and pay them for it.
5. Increased confidentiality. Because outside services are used, it is very unlikely that the investigative process would become a source of slander, libel, or breach of confidentiality. This would actually make the process safer – something we are striving to do - to make church and its processes safe.
6. Professional, competent services are needed for such crucial and critical work. A little 20-hour training does not adequately equip or prepare team members to handle the important work of investing abuse allegations. No person “gets it” by doing a little training, having a few conversations, read an article, and then be equipped to handle abuse allegations.
A different way of stating it would be:
1. Human nature wants to believe the worst. There are too many preconceived ideas about what happened before anything has been determined. Our human nature wants to quickly believe the bad and wrong of others and once that happens, ministry for the person (accused) is often over. Trust is lost for the accused even if the party never did anything wrong.
2. Teams run a high risk of being sued. Teams, because of their incompetence and ill-equipped and ill-trained background, run a high risk of being sued. Their failure to understand how liability works and what typical issues can lead to lawsuits increases their possibility of being sued. When a team (and the director) fails to follow Synod-adopted process for investigations and defamation has occurred, you can be assured litigation will soon follow.
3. Poor stewardship. Monies for training and retraining have reached a place where we need to question stewardship. Wasting money on a project that has shown itself not to meet a good enough level of success calls us as Christians to stop and evaluate about what we are really doing.
4. Abuse is a complex issue. Abuse has so many areas and avenues for understanding. Spending time and energy on something that has not met enough success is a lost cause. We could better use that time and energy to educate church leaders and members about the subject of abuse in hopes of helping a greater number of people. Let’s put our energy into something that actually has better and greater results.
5. Confidentiality in the CRC is a big problem. Confidentiality is often non-existent in the CRC. From denominational personnel to team members to pastors to councils, we struggle with silencing confidential information of others. This again can lead to defamation. This leads to the church becoming abusive again – and the betrayal of trust comes on a whole new level.
6. Investigations of allegations are a critical and crucial matter. Lives and futures are in the hands of team members who have at times shown themselves to be incompetent and ill-equipped to do this work. A little 20-hour training will never prove itself worthy of service in comparison to professionals who are trained in this field of expertise and who know what this is all about.
7. Frivolous allegations. Just as there are attempts to do frivolous lawsuits, so are there attempts by dysfunctional people, usually women, to bring forth frivolous allegations. Their need for attention and their skewed perceptions, (such as "he flirts with me or came on to me") usually from women who have been sexually abused as children, will be decreased and even eliminated when the council has to decide if they need to hire the outside resource to investigate. Along with this, if the council chooses to hire the outside investigative services, professionals can pick out a Borderline Personality Disorder Woman easily - and will be equipped to deal with her dysfunction far better and more effectively then teams would. Also chances are that there will be less attempts for Borderline Woman to manipulate the system because professionals can recognize their manipulation and address such behavior appropriately.
If the argument – and I have heard this – is that councils would more likely not use an outside source because it is not as easily accessible, then we need to ask -- - - what is better?
to use our own response system (which cannot guarantee safety and could show itself to be abusive)
vs.
using a professional service (which would be safer ) which councils may less likely utilize because of a lack of convenience
vs.
other ideas that need to be explored
????
Judy De Wit
Posted in: Great Resource
Excellent book. Stops the enabling approach - gets at the problem approach and stops the "give" just because we think that is the answer to poverty and problems.
Judy De Wit