Helping to Heal

HELPING TO HEAL: HOW CHURCHES CAN SUPPORT SURVIVORS OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE

A SPRING MINISTRIES’ TRAINING DAY – 3 MARCH 2012 AND 29 SEPTEMBER 2012

Sexual abuse, according to research, affects 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys.  That equates to about 10 million people in the UK who are survivors of sexual abuse.  A report by the Church of England said that 80% of churchgoing women will go to someone in church for help rather than a counsellor or other professional.

There has been a welcome increase in recent years in the availability of training around child protection issues in churches. But there is very little information and training available on how to respond well to adult survivors of child sexual abuse.  This training day looks to plug that gap.

On this ‘Helping to Heal’ training day we will look at some basic information, to lay a foundation, such as:

· what is child sexual abuse?

· what is the ‘spectrum of abuse’?

· what is the impact of abuse on people’s lives?

And then we’ll look in more detail at how churches can respond well.  We will look at abuse, and we will look at healing – and we’ll see how we can move from one to the other in a way that restores dignity and freedom back to survivors.

A flyer with more information about our day is attached and we would be grateful if you could pass it on to anyone who might benefit from coming on the day.  This would include:

· survivors of sexual abuse, their partners, friends and family

· church leadership teams

· anyone with pastoral responsibility within a church setting

· anybody interested in supporting or caring for people who have been abused

We plan on running the training day twice in 2012 at our base in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.  Two dates are currently available:

· 3 March 2012 and

· 29 September 2012

You can book online and pay by PayPal or credit/debit card, or alternatively you can pay by cheque by filling in a booking form: download here.

Direct invoicing is also available – please ask.  The cost is £40.00 per person, but there are group discounts available, and some concessions for people on a low wage.

Spring Ministries (www.springministries.org.uk) runs training days and workshops for church leadership and pastoral teams on the subject of child sexual abuse, how to develop church environments that are conducive to healing, mental health issues, and working with ritual or organised abuse and sex trafficking.  This training day is run by Carolyn Spring, a freelance writer and trainer who is Chair of START (Survivors Trauma and Abuse Recovery Trust: www.start-online.org.uk), and Director of PODS (Partners of Dissociative Survivors: www.pods-online.org.uk) amongst other activities.  She is a survivor of extreme childhood abuse as a result of which she developed Dissociative Identity Disorder.  For more information about her please go to www.carolynspring.co.uk.  Carolyn is also a Trustee of Huntingdonshire Community Church (www.hccuk.org), and Spring Ministries is part of Plumbline Ministries, a network of churches and ministries working together to advance the kingdom of God (www.plumbline.org.uk).

We hope to see you there!