By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer

ATLANTA—The archdiocese will now require catechists beginning the certification process to complete a course dealing with child abuse.

Leading the archdiocesan effort against child abuse, titled Project Aware, is Katie Fortunato, who has accepted the challenge as her vocation. Fortunato carries a memory of a little girl she counseled for three years who skipped up to the witness stand with her teddy bear in court to testify against her stepfather who had sexually molested her.

Fortunato encountered Samantha, who had endured “catastrophic levels of abuse,” when she was working at the Project Against the Sexual Abuse of Appalachian Children from 1993-96. There she provided therapy to child victims, adult survivors and offenders.

“That showed me that even in the worst situations kids can get better. Kids can be okay. It was pretty poignant. She held a teddy bear. She’s an example that hope and healing are possible, that even in extreme cases the spirit can survive, that healing is possible. A lot of people don’t heal as well,” she said.

Fortunato, a licensed counselor with a master’s degree in counseling psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been shining the light of that hope as coordinator of Project Aware, an informational, educational program in the archdiocesan Office of Special Ministries. It was founded in 1992 to increase awareness and prevention of sexual, physical, emotional and neglectful child abuse. She became associate coordinator in 1997 and coordinator in 1999, working part-time.

To enable catechists to understand child abuse and respond appropriately to it, the Department of Religious Education will require this fall that all catechists beginning certification complete two hours of training on child abuse awareness, prevention and reporting in accordance with Georgia and canon law. A training event for directors of religious education, who will lead the training of catechists at their parishes, will be held Sept. 30 at the Catholic Center in Atlanta.

Throughout the year, the workshop, which all catechists are encouraged to attend, will address topics like what physical and behavioral signs of abuse to look for in youth and other related issues. The workshop will introduce a projected revision of the archdiocesan-wide policy on reporting, created by a committee on the project’s advisory council composed of canon and civil lawyers, the director of the Village of St. Joseph and mental health and other professionals.

As parishioners sometimes try to report cases to her, Fortunato said the guidelines clarify whom to call, how to respond to the child and the steps to be taken. It will address topics such as relating to county Departments of Family And Children’s Services and when one needs to make a report.

“It’s an intimidating process. We’re trying to provide some education about what the content of a report needs to be, who do you call, what do you say, how do you document and is it the right thing to do if you don’t know one hundred percent. I think people struggle with that ... If you have a suspicion or concern that a child is in a situation where he or she is not safe, we need to do what we can to protect our kids,” she said, adding that clergy are exempt from those mandated to making a report under the state disclosure law. “There are a lot of big, scary questions that people have and we want to help them to feel as confident as possible ... Obviously how you report is governed by state law.”

The project gives people the information and the guidelines on how to handle potential abuse cases “in a way that is compassionate to the victim and is consistent with what Georgia law requires.”

She noted the tragic experience of one child who told three adults she was abused before the case was reported. “A child should be believed the first time and get help,” she said. “What I encourage people to keep in mind (is) that if you have a suspicion of abuse it’s not your responsibility to investigate it ... I think you have a moral and personal responsibility as a Catholic and as a Christian to speak up on behalf of that child. DFACS is that statewide agency that is responsible for investigating the case.”

In addition to the questions concerning reporting possible cases of abuse, Fortunato said it’s also important for catechists to be prepared for victims’ inevitable faith questions in light of their experiences.

“If you have a child that’s being abused how does that affect their faith development? (One asks,) ‘Does God not like me because I’ve been abused? That child’s faith certainly can be shaped by being abused ... ‘Why did this happen to me? How did God let this happen?’ Those can be residual questions survivors face so we try to provide responses for that.”

She hopes catechists will raise awareness of the availability of ongoing programs, resources of support, consultation and referrals, and the existence of a library with educational and preventative materials. In the next year she plans to have printed materials, videos and training and presentations available in Spanish. Presentations are currently made to Catholic groups as well as non-Catholic ones on topics such as child abuse prevention, addressed to parents, date rape and dating safety, addressed to youth groups, and personal responsibility and child abuse, addressed to clergy. The familiar Blue Ribbon Campaign is held in April, Child Abuse Prevention Month.

“We try to do things throughout the year to heal. It’s not just a once a year thing. We’re trying to make resources and programs available. I think the catechist certification will do a lot for that.”

The 1994 archdiocesan policy, which only addressed allegations of abuse by church professionals, is now in the process of being looked at for possible revision. Once approved, the new reporting guidelines will be distributed to all parishes, Fortunato said. She hopes upon the policy’s approval that churches will have a trained representative to serve as a point of contact on updated reporting procedures.

According to the Georgia Council on Child Abuse, in Georgia there were 75,877 incidents of child abuse and neglect reported in 1998, and nationwide in 1999 there were 3.15 million children reported to Child Protective Services agencies as alleged victims, an increase of 30 percent since 1988. Substance abuse, poverty, lack of parental skills and domestic violence are the top parenting problems in families reported for child maltreatment. Fortunato noted that, while physical abuse and neglect occur more often in poor families, sexual abuse reaches across socio-economic, religious and racial boundaries.

Project Aware is currently developing a comprehensive list by counties of therapy and other professional resources for victims to better serve the entire archdiocese. The office is developing a newsletter for priests to be distributed beginning in October. Fortunato hopes to have the program certified through the state Department of Human Resources, becoming an approved training provider for licensed Catholic preschools that require child abuse education.

Fortunato has been called to serve abused children since setting out on her counseling career path. Her first job from 1992-94 was as a counselor with the Knox County Sheriff’s Department where she counseled felony offenders and found that “every single felon I worked with had a history of abuse. I realized I wasn’t doing a whole lot of good talking about their drug and alcohol (abuse), their violent behavior, until I looked deeper into where it all started. I was amazed, shocked.”

In her work from 1996-98 as director for an outpatient psychiatric program for older adults at an Emory hospital, she learned while counseling patients in their 80s that “part of what they were dealing with as end-of-life issues (was) trying to come to terms with survivor issues they had never had a chance to talk about.”

After marrying a Catholic and converting to Catholicism in 1997, Fortunato was affirmed in that conversion by learning about the church’s Project Aware in a parish bulletin. She eagerly signed on as a volunteer before becoming associate coordinator. She’s happy now to be on the preventative end, instead of seeing the pain and suffering survivors endure.

“Having been a therapist for sexually abused children for six years, I feel a calling to that kind of work. It’s very rewarding, but it’s nice to be on the other end of things, to be proactive in efforts to prevent the abuse. And I think it speaks very highly of this diocese and the Catholic Church of the willingness to have a program like this. (They’re saying,) ‘we want to do what we can to protect our children’ ... For me it’s a dream to be on that positive end of things. Let’s prevent; let’s protect our kids. Let’s think of ways that we can make our community safer for children.”

Raising its profile in the community, she is pleased that in the fall of 1999 the program was moved from Catholic Social Services, with which she still works closely, into Special Ministries, supervised by Director of Operations Betti Knott.

“I think for me it is a sign of the importance of this to the archdiocese and the archbishop and the leadership. It kind of elevates it in a good supervisory place and a recognition place and Betti has been a wonderful support and a catalyst for it as well.”

As she lives her dream, she helps enable survivors and other children to have their own dreams. She also looks forward to continued work with the Pro-Life Office, as abortion is the ultimate form of child abuse.

“October is Respect Life Month. We’re looking at ways to do some collaborative effort between the offices and in the Catechism of the Catholic Church it all falls under respect for human dignity. It’s neat that respect life fits in with respecting kids.”

For catechist training and other information on Project Aware, call Tessie Jones at (404) 885-7234.