Please check out our Winter 2020 Newsletter!
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Contact: Lizz Durbin, Safe Communities, 717-844-0870, ldurbin@safecommunitiespa.org
Contact: Linda Rentschler, Humanitarian Social Innovations, 610-451-4798, lrentschler@humanitariansocialinnovations.com
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
Lancaster program to prevent child sexual abuse builds on success
Lancaster, PA, November 7, 2019: It began in 2011. After helping several congregations deal with incidents of child sexual abuse, Linda Crockett started a program aimed to actually prevent abuse, not just respond to another crisis. The “SafeChurch” program, based at the nonprofit Samaritan Counseling Center, quickly took off with high interest. Within a few years the program had a small staff, a survivor-led network of volunteers, and was helping churches not only statewide but around the country. Evaluations and national research studies showed the program was working, and in 2018 they added “Safe Places” which teaches camps, sports programs, and other youth groups to improve how they protect kids. Now the three-person team is taking the work to the next level and building a new organization.
They have a new name “Safe Communities” — a new website, new offices in downtown Lancaster, and effective January 1, 2020, a new partnership with Bethlehem-based fiscal sponsor Humanitarian Social Innovations (HSI), which helps nonprofit programs develop and grow.
Linda Rentschler, CEO of HSI, said that this is exactly the type of partnership her organization was created for: to work behind the scenes on the administrative side to help social entrepreneurs increase their humanitarian impact. “When I learned about Safe Communities’ program, I realized we may never know how many innocent lives they have protected. I am proud that we can help provide an administrative safety net throughout their transition, and a solid foundation on which the organization can grow.”
“It is both exciting…. and challenging,” said Safe Communities Director Linda Crockett, a nationally recognized leader on prevention of child sexual abuse. “The more people we can train, the more kids we are protecting. With the new website it will be easier for organizations to find us, and for us to share information. HSI provides exactly the kind of operational support a growing nonprofit like us needs so we can continue to focus on all the direct prevention work we are doing while also building our new organization.”
Those challenges include fundraising, which is critical for any nonprofit, but particularly tricky for Safe Communities right now: they had been mostly funded by multi-year grants from national foundations, but that grant program ended this year. While a lot of national funding is now focused on the also important issues of stopping online child exploitation and trafficking, the reality is that children are most at risk of sexual abuse where they live and play.
That’s why they are growing their program, says Linda Crockett, “We have seen that community-based institutions—like youth sports programs and churches—can actually enable and allow continued abuse. Or they can do the opposite, which is what Safe Communities sets them up to do: make spaces safer, educate kids and adults, respond to early red flags to prevent abuse before it happens, and if it does, deal with it immediately and effectively. Prevention is possible, which is what keeps us hopeful, despite what we know is the reality of the child sex abuse crisis.”
Samaritan Counseling Center welcomes (tax-deductible) contributions to the Safe Communities 2020 Fund through the end of this year to help the program start off strong in the new year. For more information, and to donate, visit www.SafeCommunitiesPA.org.
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Contact: Linda Rentschler, Humanitarian Social Innovations, 610-451-4798, lrentschler@humanitariansocialinnovations.com
PRESS RELEASE
For immediate release
Lancaster program to prevent child sexual abuse builds on success
Lancaster, PA, November 7, 2019: It began in 2011. After helping several congregations deal with incidents of child sexual abuse, Linda Crockett started a program aimed to actually prevent abuse, not just respond to another crisis. The “SafeChurch” program, based at the nonprofit Samaritan Counseling Center, quickly took off with high interest. Within a few years the program had a small staff, a survivor-led network of volunteers, and was helping churches not only statewide but around the country. Evaluations and national research studies showed the program was working, and in 2018 they added “Safe Places” which teaches camps, sports programs, and other youth groups to improve how they protect kids. Now the three-person team is taking the work to the next level and building a new organization.
They have a new name “Safe Communities” — a new website, new offices in downtown Lancaster, and effective January 1, 2020, a new partnership with Bethlehem-based fiscal sponsor Humanitarian Social Innovations (HSI), which helps nonprofit programs develop and grow.
Linda Rentschler, CEO of HSI, said that this is exactly the type of partnership her organization was created for: to work behind the scenes on the administrative side to help social entrepreneurs increase their humanitarian impact. “When I learned about Safe Communities’ program, I realized we may never know how many innocent lives they have protected. I am proud that we can help provide an administrative safety net throughout their transition, and a solid foundation on which the organization can grow.”
“It is both exciting…. and challenging,” said Safe Communities Director Linda Crockett, a nationally recognized leader on prevention of child sexual abuse. “The more people we can train, the more kids we are protecting. With the new website it will be easier for organizations to find us, and for us to share information. HSI provides exactly the kind of operational support a growing nonprofit like us needs so we can continue to focus on all the direct prevention work we are doing while also building our new organization.”
Those challenges include fundraising, which is critical for any nonprofit, but particularly tricky for Safe Communities right now: they had been mostly funded by multi-year grants from national foundations, but that grant program ended this year. While a lot of national funding is now focused on the also important issues of stopping online child exploitation and trafficking, the reality is that children are most at risk of sexual abuse where they live and play.
That’s why they are growing their program, says Linda Crockett, “We have seen that community-based institutions—like youth sports programs and churches—can actually enable and allow continued abuse. Or they can do the opposite, which is what Safe Communities sets them up to do: make spaces safer, educate kids and adults, respond to early red flags to prevent abuse before it happens, and if it does, deal with it immediately and effectively. Prevention is possible, which is what keeps us hopeful, despite what we know is the reality of the child sex abuse crisis.”
Samaritan Counseling Center welcomes (tax-deductible) contributions to the Safe Communities 2020 Fund through the end of this year to help the program start off strong in the new year. For more information, and to donate, visit www.SafeCommunitiesPA.org.
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