'Guardian angels' honored

By Jonathan Martinez - Florida Catholic

MIAMI | You might call them the “guardian angels” of the archdiocese’s children.

At the very least, they make sure that employees, parents and volunteers are well-versed in the awareness and prevention of child sexual abuse, in order to keep children safe in the Church. 

These volunteers, known as Virtus facilitators, were honored Oct. 6 during a Mass of appreciation celebrated by Archbishop Thomas Wenski at St. Mary Cathedral.

“Most of you who are here at this Mass work as volunteers in your parishes to provide Virtus trainings for all those who through their work in our parishes or our schools are in contact with children and/or vulnerable adults,” said Archbishop Wenski during the homily. “I, as Archbishop of Miami, am grateful for what you do so well and with such dedication to assure a safe environment for our children when they come to one of our parishes or schools.”

Virtus is a training program that helps parents, teachers and anyone who works with children to recognize signs of inappropriate behavior and to implement five steps to protect children. The training is required of all employees, as well as clergy, religious, or volunteers working or serving in any capacity in a parish, school or entity of the Archdiocese of Miami.

The training sessions — along with background checks of employees and volunteers — are part of the commitment made by the U.S. bishops to keep children safe, as stated in the Charter for the Protection of Children which the bishops approved in June 2002. Virtus is the training program selected for use in the Archdiocese of Miami.

“The first half of the program teaches awareness of the problem. It teaches you not only the nature of child sexual abuse but of predators and it is very intense because you hear from the predators themselves,” said Jan Rayburn, Safe Environment coordinator for the archdiocese. “The second part of it is the prevention aspect. It emphasizes to everyone that this is absolutely a preventable crime. It can be prevented and we give them five steps to help them prevent this from happening.”

Facilitators go through 12 hours of training before being able to lead Virtus sessions. They dedicate a lot of time not only giving training sessions but also maintaining their own training up to date and preparing to lead the sessions, which can last up to three hours in English and often between four and five hours in Spanish.

"We do this to create awareness and to be attentive to the children we are protecting,” said Francisco Anduiza, parishioner and facilitator at Good Shepherd Church in Miami. “At the end of each class a lot of the participants come to us and tell us how much they've truly learned, especially about awareness."

“There are a lot times when you get people to go to those trainings they walk in and they don't want to be there,” said the archbishop during a reception following the Mass. “You do it so well that when they leave, they were glad they were there."

At the Archdiocese of Miami, Virtus trainings have been offered for the last 10 years, culminating in nearly 1,700 sessions and 100,000 people trained. The archdiocese has more than 100 facilitators, and about 50 of them took part in the Mass. Each of the facilitators was given a crystal award as a token of appreciation, and one facilitator, Mara Goldin from St. Jerome Parish in Fort Lauderdale, received a guardian angel medal with an inscription of gratitude from the archbishop. She alone has led 101 training sessions, with more still scheduled.

The event, including a reception in the cathedral gardens, was sponsored by Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

“I think the mission of every teacher is to protect children and those that are vulnerable,” said Carlota Morales, principal and facilitator at Sts. Peter and Paul in Miami. “When this program came about I thought it was important to get involved and in my parish I thought it would be great to have a facilitator available and on the premises. My assistant principal (Jocelyn Zlatkin) is also a facilitator and she likes to say that we do it for the universal church — and she’s 100 percent correct.”

Currently, the archdiocese ranks 18th nationwide for number of Virtus sessions held (out of 121 Catholic dioceses that use Virtus), 12th nationwide for number of adults trained in Virtus, and eighth nationwide for number of facilitators trained to teach Virtus.
   
“This Mass of appreciation was so important for us to arrange,” said Rayburn. “We had wanted to do this for sometime but were looking for the right moment. It was Archbishop Wenski that said this week would be perfect because Tuesday was the feast of the Guardian Angels — and these people are guardian angels in our archdiocese.”

Virtus sessions are continually added to the online archdiocesan calendar of events. To register to attend a session visit www.virtusonline.org or to read more about the Safe Environment Policy of the Archdiocese of Miami visit www.miamiarch.org/virtus.