Protecting God's Children

CLIFTON  In marking National Child Abuse Prevention Month during April, the Diocese’s Office of Child Protection and Youth Protection has announced the implementation of its new website for Virtus Online and Fastrax Select, along with other child protection initiatives. A service of Selection.com, it simplified the registration and verification process of criminal background checks for the more than 20,000 clergy, employees and volunteers, who minister, work or serve in parishes, schools and agencies of the Diocese. Since its implementation was completed in February, the Diocese has registered more than 300 new volunteers and employees with “relatively few issues.” That positive report comes from Eric Wilsusen, director of the diocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection since Nov. 7, who last year introduced youth protection coordinators in parishes, schools and agencies to the new website, which is part of the Diocese’s Protecting God’s Children program. Ahead of the implementation, the Diocese trained the coordinators to use the new online system that has reduced administrative work and costs. That’s because the system places the responsibility to complete the registration process on the employees and volunteers, who must undergo background checks and attend training sessions in child abuse prevention, he said.

“We in the Diocese want to create a safe environment for our children in our parishes, schools and agencies. We also want to make it easier for our coordinators to create that environment,” said Wilsusen, a former deputy chief of the Jefferson Township Police Department, who retired in January 2017. Also, he has served as a coordinator for his parish, Our Lady Star of the Sea in Lake Hopatcong, and as a facilitator for Protecting God’s Children, child protection training that every new diocesan volunteer and employee must complete. “So far, we have had positive feedback from our coordinators [about the online program],” he said.

Also last month, Wilsusen and Pat Barrett, wife of Thomas Barrett, diocesan coordinator of special projects, conducted training for eight new facilitators for Protecting God’s Children. They will train another eight coordinators during a session tomorrow, Friday, April 13. He hopes that having a greater number of coordinators will enable Protecting God’s Children sessions to be held in more locations to make it more convenient for employees and volunteers to attend in a timely manner. The Office of Child and Youth Protection continues to look for people to facilitate its live sessions and parishes to host them, said Wilsusen, who has 31 years of experience in law enforcement.

The Protecting God’s Children workshops provide the latest, updated information on ways to protect children from predators, and the “Keeping the Promise” online training program will provide a refresher for individuals who have been associated with the Diocese’s protection program for more than five years. These sessions include new information about social media — “one of the main ways that predators gain access to children today,” said Wilsusen, who communicates regularly with coordinators largely through Flocknote, an email messaging system used by the Diocese and parishes, Wilsusen said.

Since it implementation, Wilsusen continues to provide ongoing training on the Virtus Online and Fastrax Select system at the parishes, schools and agencies as needed. It replaces the Diocese’s use of a system by Sterling Talent Solutions and offers an integrated process, which enables employees or volunteers to register online and includes the option of using their cell phones. They type in their personal information on the secure website; read the Code of Conduct; and sign a disclosure form, which gives the Diocese permission to search for background information about them in public records. Then, they view the schedule of upcoming workshop sessions for “Protecting God’s Children.” The individual is not active in the system until he or she attends a live training session and completes the Code of Conduct and is not permitted to work or volunteer at a parish or school until he or she has completed a background check, he said.

With Virtus Online and Fastrax Select, coordinators can view the status of each individual online, print out reports and in the future have the ability to edit and manage the records of the employees and volunteers in the system. This new process also marks a significant improvement from the past, when coordinators had to print out the Code of Conduct, collect a disclosure form to complete a background check and collect a training certificate. Now, coordinators save them electronically — for the annual child-protection audits in all dioceses, conducted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, he said.

The Diocese pays for each background check, while each parish, school or agency will continue to pay for the fingerprinting of the individuals. Also, Virtus Online and Fastrax rechecks each individual every three months at no cost — for an added sense of security for the Diocese, Thomas Barrett said.

For Child Abuse Prevention Month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published resources including booklets, posters and bulletin blurbs to help dioceses promote and participate in the annual observance. Among activities, the U.S. bishops are encouraging faithful to join the Bishops’ Call to Prayer for Life, Marriage and Religious Liberty on April 13 by praying and fasting with the following intention: “We pray that God may grant those affected by abuse in any way the courage to tell their story and seek healing” (www.usccb.org/pray).

“The Diocese has new momentum in its efforts to protect children and provide safe environments with Eric, who has been involved in children protection at his parish for years and had a long career in law enforcement. He is dedicated to getting our parishes, schools and agencies on the same page in this important area, which has only strengthened our already great program even more,” Thomas Barrett said.

[To become a facilitator, call Eric Wilsusen at (973) 777-8818, ext. 257, or email [email protected].]