Dear St. Joseph the Worker Families,
The Los Angeles Archdiocese, Office of Safeguard the Children, has developed a new K-12, Empowering God’s Children and Youth Safety Program for schools and Religious Education Programs throughout the Archdioceses. The new program is designed to help children and young people know they have the power to protect themselves from harmful or threatening situations and to always aim to keep themselves safe and healthy.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles provides the Empowering God’s Children and Youth Safety Program in an ongoing, annual effort to help create and maintain a safe environment for children and youth to be protected from all forms of abuse. We previously utilized the Good Touch/Bad Touch Program.
The focus of the Empowering God’s Children and Youth Safety Program is to empower children and youth with the knowledge and understanding needed to keep themselves safe.
This year we will present Empowering God’s Children and Youth Safety Program to our students in a class lesson this week. The topic(s) for this year’s lesson(s) is Boundaries and Bullying. Each lesson will include: VIRTUS® Introductory Video “Empowering God’s Children and Youth,” “Hands-On” classroom activities, Technology Component, Take Home activity to help parents/guardians review the lesson with their child, and a “Catechetical Connection’ to the Catechism of the Catholic Church to magnify God’s desire for their happiness, health and safety. Each lesson is prepared specifically to student age and grade.
A Summer Safety Lesson will also be presented at the end of each school year to remind children to always put “Safety First.”
The Empowering God’s Children and Youth Program will be presented by Mrs. Borjas this week.
Facilitators of the Empowering God’s Children and Youth Program undergo extensive training as well as continuing education. Mrs. Borjas is also an Archdiocese of Los Angeles Adult VIRTUS Facilitator.
Teachers will be scheduling instruction time as follows: Grades TK-4 will participate in two 30 minute sessions, while grades 5-8 will participate in one 60 minute session.
For more information on the Empowering God’s Children and Youth Safety Program, you may visit the VIRTUS Online™ website at www.archla.org/safeguard. If you have any questions, please contact Mrs. Borjas at 818-341-6616 or [email protected]
We thank you for sharing your children with us as we all work together to Empower God’s Children and Youth.
Peace,
CJ Kruska
Principal