Debunking 4 Sexual Abuse Claims Related to the Church | An Interview with Jennifer Roach

Jennifer Roach is a licensed mental health counselor living in
American Fork, Utah. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints four years ago after being in the Protestant
church her whole life. She currently serves as a Gospel Doctrine
teacher in her ward. Jennifer is the recipient of this year's "John
Taylor Defender of the Faith" award and the BH Robert's Research
Grant. Her research primarily focuses on issues that arise when
sexual abuse happens in churches. Jennifer does a weekly podcast
for FAIR Latter-day Saints that focuses on questions that arise
about our faith from Evangelicals. She also teaches as an adjunct
for Brigham Young University-Idaho. Highlights 01:50 Kurt
introduces Jennifer Roach and her background as a therapist for
sexual abuse. 03:30 Jennifer will speak on four specific claims
pertaining to the Church and sexual abuse and seven things that the
Church does to go above and beyond what most churches do to help
and protect youth. 7:00 Jennifer addresses some of the biggest
questions that people have. One big question that people have is,
“Is there more sexual abuse in our church or not?” Sometimes the
media twists things to make it seem that way. 8:30 Boy Scout
records data on abuse. Jennifer reviewed and researched all these
cases from the past 80 years and was able to find how cases the
Church of Jesus Christ has compared to other churches. Around 5.6%
of the abuse cases were Latter-day Saint related. 19:10 Why doesn’t
the Church do background checks? Jennifer explains the three issues
with background checks. The issue of delayed disclosure. Most
people don’t disclose the abuse they received until they’re in
their 50s to 70s. Background checks are not thorough. It’s not a
deep dive into someone's past. It only shows convicted crimes but
not accusations. It only covers the past 7 years. 29:30 The danger
of telling people that someone has been background checked. We
believe that means this person is squeaky clean and they can be
trusted. It really means that they don’t have convictions and they
aren’t on the sex offenders list but it does not mean they are
safe. 32:20 Jennifer talks about the case from the previous year.
The man passed the federal background check every year despite
doing horrific things to his own children and none of it was on his
record. 34:20 The Church’s helpline. There have been a lot of
claims accusing the Church’s helpline of hiding abuse but if we
look deeper into the case we find most of these claims are untrue.
38:00 Why do we need a helpline? It helps leaders know what to
report. Each state's laws are different. The helpline helps bishops
fulfill their legal responsibilities and get the correct help for
the victim. 48:00 There are standard best practices when working
with youth and the Church follows all of them. They are all in the
handbook. Another concern is there isn’t always a window in the
bishop’s office. However, a youth can take a parent, leader, or
friend into the bishop’s office. It’s in the handbook. 53:10 What
is the Church doing that goes above and beyond those gold standard
things in child protection? The helpline Disfellowshipping Gender
specific leaders for young women The member number system Existing
associations (go to church with your neighbors who know you) Being
sustained Being called 1:10:50 How can we be better at detecting
abuse that is currently going on? Most of the time kids disclose
abuse by accident. They normally aren’t going to disclose it to you
directly. 1:22:50 Is there anything else we can do to help stop
abuse? Links Jennifer's Presentation Slides: PowerPoint format |
PDF format 4 Reasons Why Bishops Should Be Meeting with Youth | An
Interview with Jennifer Roach Reporting Abuse, Church Helpline,
& the Bishop | An Interview with Jennifer Roach Jennifer's work
at Public Square There is already a discussion started about this
podcast.