The safe environment program in the Diocese of Columbus turned 20 years old this year.
While it might seem to be cause for celebration, Regina Quinn, the director of the Safe Environment Office, said the office is simply observing the anniversary.
She said it is important to see how far the office has come, reflecting on where it started and where it is now.
“The more we learn, the more we realize we have a lot to learn,” Quinn said. “We can always make things better.”
In 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) drafted the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”
Later that year, the USCCB approved “The Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests, Deacons and Other Church Personnel,” which implemented the charter.
The norms received the recognitio (recognition) of the Vatican and are the law for all U.S. dioceses and eparchies, which are dioceses of the Byzantine Catholic Church. Every diocese in the United States is required to establish a safe environment program.
The Diocese of Columbus’ safe environment program was established in May 2003.
The Catholic Church mandates training and background checks and provides further education and resources for all adults working with children to protect and provide safe environments for them.
The diocese selected VIRTUS “Protecting God’s Children” (PGC) as its training program. Every parish and school staff member and volunteer in the diocese must attend a PGC session.
“The first Protecting God’s Children session in the Diocese of Columbus was in November of 2003, so this is the 20th anniversary of our training program and really when our program came out,” Quinn said.
In 2018, the diocese’s safe environment program became the Safe Environment Office. Quinn said the office works closely with the diocesan Office of Catholic Schools because that is where a large percentage of the children are.
“We also work very closely with the USCCB Secretariat for the Protection of Children and Young People to make sure that our programs are meeting and or exceeding what the USCCB wants,” she said.
Per the charter written by the USCCB, every diocese must have a training program, such as VIRTUS PGC, as well as a policy that establishes who is required to get background checks, be trained and complete refresher courses.
The diocese must complete an audit report, or examination of records, for the USCCB every year. The diocese receives an onsite visit from USCCB auditors every three years to ensure that the diocese is meeting the standards set in the charter and norms.
“The diocese has always passed those audits,” Quinn said. “We use a similar approach in dealing with the parishes and schools. Everyone also has to give us a written report every year of all of their programs with minors and all their employees and all the volunteers who work with minors.
“We visit all of our locations in the diocese once every three years, and if there have been some issues, we might visit them more, but everybody gets visited at least every three years, and that’s where we get our data that we report up to the USCCB.”
The audits make sure that the diocese is complying with the charter and norms, as well as state law and background reports. Renewed background reports are required more for teachers and school employees than the average person, Quinn said.
Since November 2003, 2,985 PGC training sessions have been held in the diocese, and 74,821 people have been trained.
Quinn said clergy, seminarians, deacons, students, religious brothers and sisters, coaches, officials, school and parish employees and volunteers at parishes and schools are among those trained.
Facilitators, or people who conduct the PGC training sessions, are volunteers. There are approximately 40 active facilitators in the diocese.
“We’ve tried to get at least one facilitator per deanery, so they can have sessions more frequently with that area’s need,” Quinn said.
“I train the facilitators for the Diocese of Columbus. I’m a master facilitator, so I get to train the new ones, and that lets me teach them the overall program, but then, what I want them to teach in the diocese and what I want to stress and what our diocesan policies are, so we can keep it individual.”
Quinn, who has a background in law, served as a prosecutor and defense attorney in the U.S. Air Force. Quinn said her background “came in very handy” for her work with the Safe Environment Office.
After she came off active duty with the Air Force, she got involved with the safe environment program at the parish level and then became a facilitator. In 2009, she became the coordinator of the diocesan safe environment program.
When the Safe Environment Office was established in 2018, she assumed the role of director.
“Mark Butler, who was the director of Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry (now part of the diocesan Office of Evangelization) at the time, hired me, and he had made the comment during my interview that I was his first cradle safe environment person,” Quinn said.
“I knew what the program was, so that was a big help when I took over, and the program has continued to grow since then.”
Quinn commended Butler for his work with the PGC training sessions. He now works with the Dominican Sisters of Peace, but he continues to volunteer as a facilitator.
While each diocesan safe environment program is different, many have similar policies. The Diocese of Columbus has adopted certain elements from other diocesan policies.
The Safe Environment Office works closely with coordinators of safe environment programs. The dioceses of Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo and Youngstown, as well the Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Parma, Ohio and the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky communicate regularly and meet quarterly.
The Diocese of Columbus’ Safe Environment Office does not operate in a vacuum, Quinn said. The office is constantly comparing itself and “benchmarking” to other dioceses and organizations.
“We’re being more selective in who we let around our children and our minors, as the Church has developed this over the last 20 years, you’re seeing other groups start to do the same thing because child abuse is not just a Catholic Church problem. It happens every place, and so, a lot of people are looking what the Church has done and doing their own similar programs. So, in many ways, the Church is now a leader in this area.”
Information has changed drastically during the past 20 years, Quinn said, so the office is looking at the best ways to get information out to people.
“The Church is making a very concerted effort to learn from its past mistakes,” Quinn said. “We cannot undo the past, but we can learn from the past and not repeat our mistakes.”
In 2020, then-Columbus Bishop Robert Brennan commissioned a safe environment task force. The task force reviewed the existing organization, policies and procedures.
The Safe Environment Office has implemented the task force’s suggestions during the past few years. Quinn said it helps to have “somebody from the outside” take an objective look, so policies stay up to date.
“In September, Bishop (Earl) Fernandes had us do a training day for clergy, and we not only went over diocesan policies, we had a guest speaker come in and conduct trauma-informed training for the clergy to give them a better idea of how to more effectively communicate with victims and survivors of abuse,” she said.
Looking ahead, Quinn said, one of the office’s goals is to “continue to adapt to new technologies, to use those, but also, to be aware of some of the dangers that new technology presents and figure out ways to deal with those potential dangers to keep it safe.”
She plans to “continue to spread the word. We continue to look at ourselves, our practices, our policies and get better – that we never become complacent. So, that would be my hope for the next 20 years: We never become complacent; we continue to grow.”