What is the purpose of the Safe Environment Office?

The office consists of myself, Kim Sbarra, and John Lambert, our Victim Assistance coordinator for the diocese and we are here to help implement the diocesan safeguarding policy along with the USCCB charter for the protection of children and youth. Our job is to make sure that everybody that's out there working with youth– volunteering, working as teachers in our school, staff members at our schools, that everyone is creating a safe environment for these children and vulnerable adults. Safe Environment is something that everybody needs to be practicing and doing because we can't do this alone. We need everyone's help to do it. We educate people on the importance of safe environment. And we're always available at any time– to talk to us, talk with your groups, anybody.

What is the purpose of the National Child and Youth Protection Leadership Conference?

The Child and Youth Protection Catholic Leadership Conference is held annually and gathers Safe Environment and Victim Assistance Coordinators from all over the United States and Puerto Rico – this year, Guam and Peru joined us. Each year is an opportunity for us to gather, listen to experts in the field help us do our daily job of safeguarding children and vulnerable adults, and walking with them when they are harmed and they need us.

How long has the conference been held?

This year was the 23rd year that the conference was held.

How has this conference evolved over time?

I think it's gotten a bigger awareness. We had 237 participants this year, so we've gone from just 50 Safe Environment Coordinators and 25 Victim Assistance Coordinators to almost everybody is in attendance. We almost have a representative from every single diocese throughout the United States and we have 197 dioceses in the US.

How do they pick the location of where the conference is happening?

We volunteered to host three years ago so it's all done by a volunteer host. We go through a process to where we have to ask our bishop if he would be willing to host it. He has to write a letter of approval and then from there we work with the conference committee, and we put it together.

What kind of impact did the conference have on holding it in the Tampa Bay area, this year specifically?

I think it was huge having it here in Tampa Bay. We were able to showcase our beautiful location that we have, plus we were able to show our resiliency from last year's hurricanes which totally devastated this area. We even had the Mayor of Clearwater come out and speak to us about that resiliency of the Tampa Bay area and how well we've done getting back up to speed as quickly as we've been able to. I think us being able to house it here at our location we were able to get speakers that we've never been able to get before. We were able to get Fr. Hans Zollner from Rome, who used to be on the Pontifical Commission for the Safeguarding of Children that Pope Francis instituted several years ago. We were able to get Archbishop Scicluna from Malta to do an address for us. I don't necessarily know if we would've been able to get those individuals had it not been here in Florida.

How do you think the sessions at the conference helped attendees better understand, create, and maintain Safe Environments?

I think it helps us because we're all able to talk about what our best practices look like in our diocese, because every single diocese is different. There are 197 different ways to do safe environment and victim assistance. It's not just one way is the best way, so us being able to gather on an annual basis to hear what the new up-and-coming best practices are from these experts helps us be able to do our ministry better and it helps us be able to get the resources that we need out there to the people that we need to help.

What was one of the more impactful moments of the conference?

I think one of the more powerful moments that we had come from Dr. Mitch Javidi, who is the Chancellor of the National Command in Staff College. Dr. Mitch was a phenomenal speaker. He talked to us about being on the front lines on a daily basis and trying to take care of everybody else; making sure that everybody else is safe. But he posed the question of asking who we are going to on a daily basis to keep ourselves safe. To be able to make sure that we can take care of everyone else. Because if we're not able to take care of ourselves, how can we take care of someone else that’s hurting? You can't. So that was a very powerful moment. He gave us access to some tools, like his online app, to help us assess how we're doing daily in our relationships and in our communities, and I have to say, everybody in the entire room was on their phones downloading that app.

What was the feedback from attendees?

So far everything that I've heard has been positive. Everyone absolutely loved it. They loved the fact that we were able to get Fr. Hans Zollner from Rome. We've been trying to get him for five years, so they were really impressed that I was able to get him, and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves.

For someone that might not know fully about the Safe Environment Office, what do you hope they know?

A: It was very nice that we were able to have the Council of Catholic Women (CCW) from Saint Brendan's come and help us register people because I think a lot of times parishes just look at it and say: “Oh man, we have to do this environment stuff again.” But they [St. Brendan CCW] were able to be there and see how many people were coming in and were able to see that it’s a universal Church atmosphere. We do this to better the whole entire Church and I think having those parishioners, and volunteers there to see that – hopefully that will impact them and when someone says “man I have to do the Safe Environment stuff again,” they will be able to look back and say “I checked in Father Ricardo from a Diocese in Peru that came here because Safe Environment is that important to not only to us, but the world.” So, I think having them there was very important, I've never seen, in the years that I've been going, we've never had volunteers from the parish come in and help with registration.