Representatives of the Center for Child Dignity met with delegates of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine
On September 19, the head of the Center for Child Dignity at the Ukrainian Catholic University, Khrystyna Shabat, and the head of projects and programs, Ivanka Rudakevych, spoke about the Center's experience in child protection in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church to delegates of the Roman Catholic Church in Ukraine. Both churches have a system for responding to cases of abuse, and delegates in the dioceses are those who receive reports of sexual abuse of minors by church employees or volunteers.
The UCU Center for the Dignity of the Child has been conducting training for delegates of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church since 2021. These include training for clergy in dioceses, schools for clergy and laity of levels I and II aimed at preventing violence against minors, trainings on the norms of behavior at Christian camps, and the Child Friendly Church project. In total, 25% of the UGCC clergy received formation and training: 187 participants were trained in schools of different levels, 14 out of 15 delegates participated in at least one formation, 600 priests from 3 dioceses received basic knowledge of violence prevention. In total, about 36% of the clergy of the UGCC are trained by the Center for the Dignity of the Child.
During the online meeting with the RCC delegates, they provided details about each of the trainings, the current academic courses for UCU students and seminarians of the Lviv Theological Seminary of the Holy Spirit of the UGCC, a series of roundtables and webinars held for representatives of the UGCC. They also introduced their colleagues to a free online course that will be useful for both clergy and laity, all those involved in the upbringing and education of children: "Child Safety is the Responsibility of Every Adult," which can be accessed at the following link: https://bezpekadytyny.com.ua/.
The meeting was an opportunity to share the methodological developments of the Center for Child Dignity, translations of the main documents that guide the Catholic Church in responding to violence against minors, and the developed "Guide to the Safety of Minors and Vulnerable Persons for UGCC Parishes," which contains basic safety concepts, instructions on how to respond to violence when you witness it or are told about it, and useful contacts for referral to specialized assistance. It is freely available to everyone:
https://cdc.ucu.edu.ua/uk/resources/putivnik-po-bezpeci-dlya-parafij/.
The UGCC and the RCC are the two lungs of the Catholic Church in Ukraine. Back in 2019, it was out of the cooperation of these two churches that the document "Basic Provisions for Interpreting Cases of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Clergy" was born, which gave a good impetus to the work to prevent violence in the Ukrainian church context. It is important to continue to produce