Protecting God's Children - Written Reflection One - Parker Michel

This week, Alli, Katie, and I went to Richmond, KY for VIRTUS Training. Because we are going to be working at Seton, a Catholic school, it was required for us to have this training before working with the girls.

I've gone to Catholic school my whole life, so I knew about VIRTUS Training before. Both of my parents are VIRTUS trained, as are a lot of my friends. They have all gone through the training for various different reasons--to chaperone a field trip, to help with a retreat, to volunteer in Catholic schools. Because I know so many people who have had VIRTUS Training, I have heard about it. I knew that the material and information would be kind of tough to hear and get through. 

This training was indeed tough to get through. It wasn't as long as I'd thought it would be, but the topics and testimony were sad and scary. In the first half of the training, they played a video with testimony from children who had been sexually abused. It was so sad and so disgusting--it made me angry. After hearing the testimony, we discussed shortly in small and large groups. We talked about our reaction to the video and how it made us feel. After this, we watched another video. This video was horrible--we heard from the abusers.

They talked about everything. They discussed their "tactics" for getting children to trust them. They talked about how many children they had abused and what they liked and how they went about doing it. In a lot of cases, they said that the children wouldn't tell because they would make it feel like it was their fault. This, to me, was so sad. These poor children carry a horrible burden because they feel like it is their fault that something as horrible as sex abuse is happening to them. 

The message of VITRUS training is amazing--every single person who is with children/around children should be there to protect them. Every person in the world is a child of God, and we are here to look out for each other and protect each other. At the end of the session, our group leader talked about the many little things we can do to protect children. She talked about things I had never thought about before--making sure doors are locked, and empty rooms are closed off. She said that we need to take away any opportunity for a child to be abused. 

From the Archdiocese of Kansas's Webpage

After going through this session, I feel like I am more aware and more able to protect children. I am really excited to begin working with GOTR tomorrow, and I can't wait to meet the girls and get to know them.