Student A Re-mix

Greetings...
As Paul Harvey used to say here's "The Rest of The Story".

The last post I shared with you talked about a young man in one of my classes...and told the story of how he shared with me that as a child he had been sexually abused.

It was so ironic to me that he decided to tell me this AFTER our class discussed the Joe Paterno/Penn State situation...which all boiled down to the obligations adults have to report such incidents to the proper authorities.

And then Suddenly there I was...knowing that I needed to report this situation to the proper authorities too; in this case that's Child Protective Services.

For the record, it wasn't quite the same as the Penn State scenario... I hadn't witnessed anything personally, but there was still an obligation on me to forward the report to the correct authorities.

And I did.

There is an online way to file the CPS report, but it still takes quite a while to fill out all of the questions.
And then there are several follow up emails with various confirmation numbers.
And next came an email from a CPS caseworker who wanted to talk with me.
And after that came a phone interview with the same caseworker.

All in all I was VERY impressed with how quickly this report was processed in light of the fact that the student in question was NOT in immediate danger.

After all was said and done, the CPS caseworker told me that since the incident happened so very long ago...and since the victim was in elementary in school at the time the alleged abuse occured...and since it happened in a different city...and since I didn't even know the name of the alleged abuser but DID know that he was a kid too a the time of the alleged abuse...that there was nothing that she could do.

She gave me some free counseling contact information to pass on to the young man.

I  took the numbers...

I did what I was supposed to do legally.
I did what I was supposed to do ethically & morally.

But it was not enough
A child had still been damaged physically and psychologically.
And that child is now a young man, who has unresolved conflict in his life and pain in his heart.

He is still suffering.
He deals with all sorts of emotions and basically just tries to numb himself into not feeling anything at all.

Here's the crystalized lesson I learned:
After taking the right legal, ethical and moral steps in reporting the incident, The ONLY REAL HELP I can offer him is prayer and being available to listen and talk with him.

The rest is up to God!
No amount of crying on my part can heal Student A.

It's a faith thing now.
And I had to release this painful situation to HIM.
For HE is more than ABLE to help heal this young man in EVERY aspect.

In HIM,
Grace