Editors Note: Stacy DeBroff, Special to HLNtv.com, is a parenting author and the founder and CEO of Mom Central Consulting and MomCentral.com. She is the former attorney founder of the Public Interest Office at Harvard Law School.
In a weekly news cycle already crowded with such stories as sexual harassment claims against a presidential candidate, the mounting European debt crisis and the nation’s stagnating job woes, one story stands out among all others -- the alleged child sex abuse scandal at Penn State.
Yes, it involves profoundly disturbing allegations made against Penn State’s former assistant football coach, and reinforces escalating fears among parents everywhere, given the entwined trust and vulnerability by our kids with authority figures. In this case, everyone agrees that any sexual abuse should be prosecuted. Culpability extends to anyone with suspicions or evidence of what a perpetrator may be doing and what actions they take based on what they suspect or know.
The dramatic coverage, protests, and storm of controversy concerns the moral and legal responsibility of those who have suspicions or evidence of illegal behavior and especially flagrant child abuse: What steps should any of us personally take to report it, who should we report it to (our bosses if involving a work setting, leaders, or coaches within an educational organization, or the police), and what should we personally do to step in and try to proactively prevent it?
Part of what appears so troubling about this and other cases of alleged institutional abuse includes tendencies of these institutions to handle accusations and allegations from within rather than first contacting external authorities. When this takes place, higher-ups can be told, personnel may move about, but rarely do the appropriate authorities become involved in an expedient enough manner to lessen the risk to subsequent children or young adults.
The Penn State saga resonates with echoes of the sexual abuse cover-up by the Catholic Church, whose leaders swept child abuse evidence and allegations under the parochial rug -- whisking off offending priests to other parishes while never alerting outside authorities or families of the children involved.
To many within the Penn State community, the firing of head football coach Joe Paterno seems to have taken precedence over the alleged perpetrator Jerry Sandusky.
Ultimately, laws remain unclear as to the level of responsibility of bystanders and others who work with or around an alleged perpetrator. In hierarchical organizations, is it enough for individuals to air their concerns or suspicions to their superiors? Or must an individual follow up to ensure these concerns have been moved to the appropriate channels, or call the authorities themselves? Is this responsibility escalated given the incredible trust parents place in institutions like colleges and universities -- places where young people experience their first measure of independence and where they work, most likely for the first time, on their own with such authority figures as professors, coaches, and other adult mentors?
For parents, we want to believe that a coach, a teacher, or a religious figure would never harm a child, that we would know instinctively and immediately if our child were in danger, and that anyone with an inkling of suspicion that abuse took place would shout it from the rooftops.
Part of the agony for parents as the Penn State story unfolds is just how much our belief system can fail our children.
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