Step 2: Minimize Opportunity If You Eliminate or Reduce One-Adult/One-Child Situations, You'll Dramatically Lower the Risk of Sexual Abuse for Children. "An organization in my community has programs for children, but puts no limits on one-adult/one-child situations. Should I be concerned?"
More than 80% of sexual abuse cases occur in one-adult/one-child situations.

Reduce the Risk. Protect Children.

• Understand that abusers often become friendly with potential victims and their families, enjoying family activities, earning trust, and gaining time alone with children.
• Think carefully about the safety of any one-adult/one-child situations. Choose group situations when possible.
• Think carefully about the safety of situations in which older youth have access to younger children. Make sure that multiple adults are present who can supervise.
• Set an example by personally avoiding one-adult/one-child situations with children other than your own.
• Monitor children's Internet use. Offenders use the Internet to lure children into physical contact.

CREATE AND LOBBY FOR POLICIES reducing or eliminating one-adult/one-child situations in all youth-serving organizations, such as faith groups, sports teams, and school clubs. These policies should ensure that all activities can be interrupted and observed.

• Talk with program administrators about the supervision of older youth who have responsibility for the care of children.
• Insist on screenings that include criminal background checks, personal interviews, and professional recommendations for all adults who serve children. Avoid programs that do not use ALL of these methods.
• Insist that youth-serving organizations train their staff and volunteers to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.
• Ensure that youth-serving organizations have policies for dealing with suspicious situations and reports of abuse.

ONE-ON-ONE TIME with a trusted adult is healthy and valuable for a child. It builds self-esteem and deepens relationships. There are things you can do to protect children when you want them to have time alone with another adult.

• Drop in unexpectedly when the child is alone with any adult, even trusted family members.
• Make sure outings are observable, if not by you, then by others.
• Ask the adult about the specifics of the planned activities before the child leaves your care. Notice the adult's ability to be specific.
• Talk with the child when he or she returns. Notice the child's mood and whether the child can tell you with confidence how the time was spent.
• Find a way to tell the adults who care for children that you and the child are educated about child sexual abuse. Be that direct.

• Thank you www.d2l.org, appreciate what you have put together and your mission!!!
  Love you all, praying for lives to be changed.
  
  7 STEPS BOOKLET 

"Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive."- The Shack
(going to veer off the education of our children topic tonight, wanted to share a little on trust.)

Trust is a very hard thing for anyone who has been abused---for that matter anyone who has ever been hurt by anyone.  The one thing that I have learned over all these years of abuse and surviving, finding me, and forgiving......is that I could not trust until I forgave.  My heart was in a place to be able to trust anyone or anyting -- until I forgave him for him.  As in the quote above in no way do I trust him, want him back in my life, or to communicate in any way with him....forgiveness is for my release and my ability to move on.  

I have mentioned in other posts that the stronghold on my life was like a noose around my neck.  Realizing that to be free of the noose of bitternes and blame I would have to forgive---the memories are tough, but they no longer have any power over me or my life.  The time to trust was now -- and I needed the ability to have that happen in my life.  If your struggling still with hate and pain and bitterness and blame.....I will be praying that God will move and shake your heart and soul so that you can move on and have an amazing life.  He meant the most for you in your life. 

I also must say that the forgiveness that I have now, wasn't at all me, it was totally and completely God working in my life and in my heart.  My biological father will one day have to answer to his actions, but for now here on earth...I know this to be true....Our God is a big God--bigger than my worries, pain, bitterness, or fears.  I turned over everything to God and knew God would handle the justice for me.
  
Luke 6:37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." 

An excerpt from Beth Moore's book Breaking Free:
"Forgiving my perpetrator didn’t mean suddenly shrugging my shoulders, muttering,  “OK, I forgive,” and going on as if those things didn’t happen. They did happen.  And they took a terrible toll on my life. Forgiveness involved my handing over
to God the responsibility for justice. The longer I held on to it, the more  bondage strangled the life out of me. God saw every bit of it, and He can far  better represent me and uphold my cause. Forgiveness meant my deferring the
cause to Christ and deciding to be free from the ongoing burden of bitterness  and blame. ~" p. 112

Another line out of Beth's book: “memories are still painful to me at times, but they no longer have power over me” (p. 112).

Love you all, praying for lives to be changed.