Welcome to the defender podcast, a resource to help mobilize and equip the body of Christ to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children Services, and I'm your host, Herbie Newell. It's Wednesday, April 17, 2024, and doctor Rick and I are coming to you from Birmingham, Alabama. And today, we are so grateful to be joined by Julie Lo. And in this episode of the Defender Podcast, we will be talking about child abuse prevention with Julie, and Julie is a highly experienced author, speaker, and counselor with over 2 decades of expertise in counseling and advocacy for vulnerable children.

Julie offers invaluable insights into the nuanced understanding of child abuse, highlighting lesser known forms that often evade detection. Well, April marks Child Abuse Prevention Month, and so the conversation really pivots to the significance of awareness and proactive measures with Julie outlining specific actions individuals and communities can take to combat combat this pressing issue. Drawing from her dual roles as a counselor and foster and adoptive parent, Julie Dell will delve into recognizing signs and indicators of child abuse and provide practical guidance on addressing concerns effectively. Julie and her husband, Greg, live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with their 5 children, and they have served for over 20 years as foster and adoptive parents. But before we do bring Julie on, I want to remind you about Families Count, our Families Count program.

And for so many children, they're in foster care because of abuse. They're in foster care because of neglect. But at Lifeline, we want to empower these children's families with education, resources, and support. Parents who are struggling to keep their families together are vulnerable to making decisions that affect their children negatively. Many parents also don't know how to parent in a healthy way.

That's why we partner with local churches for Families Count. Families Count is a family restoration and preservation ministry that partners with a local church to provide parenting courses for vulnerable families in the foster care system who are at risk in entering it. By helping these parents develop a more healthy family, we help prevent child neglect and abuse. You can help make help families stay together in a healthy way when you partner with us. Visit lifelinechild.org/donate to learn more about becoming a monthly donor or see our show notes for more details, or if you and your church are interested in having Families Count as a part of your program to vulnerable families, visit lifelinechild.org or visit the show notes for more information to get your church connected with Families Count.

Well, before we bring on Julie, it's the time that everyone looks forward to when we bring on, the infamous doctor Rick, the, one who is the celebrity on the Defender podcast. Doctor Rick, This is obviously an important topic. We're grateful to have Julie with us. And I know for you and I as long term, long time Southern Baptists, and really just churchmen, not only have we seen abuse skyrocket among parishioners, but unfortunately also among staff. And so this is a we're going to keep children safe, especially vulnerable children, safe.

This is a topic we definitely need to tackle.

Yeah, Herbie, I've been excited about us being able to have this conversation. And I think it's because we all know that this is central to the heart of Jesus, right? Like, the Lord said to, you know, to his close followers that, that caring for children and caring for children well and protecting them is part of our responsibility. And he said, look, it's egregious when we offend and when we victimize children. And I think sadly, what we've seen, I mean, we were talking off air before we got started and I think folks know part of my part of my history is teaching youth ministry for 15 years was around the youth ministry world for probably 25 years or so.

And I remember the struggles in the days when when we started talking about things like background checks and people were reticent about those things and they wondered why we were doing those things in the church. And one of the things that I appreciate about Julie, appreciate about her ministry and the people that she's also engaged with, is they're really raising this issue to the church in a way that help us to think broadly and deeply about how we protect children and how we become leaders in this. And as the the church has been working from behind for far too long, and it's time for us to to be the people that God's called us to be and for us to show the world what it looks like to be actively engaged in protecting children. And so, Julie, thank you for joining us. We appreciate you taking the time to come and talk with us.

And we're really excited to have this conversation with you.

Thank you for having me.

Yeah. Well, I think first of all, your your background and and your credentials speak for themselves. And and I think the the Lord's given you a ministry to to advocate for vulnerable children, and has given you firsthand knowledge as an adoptive parent, as a foster parent, to see the results of when children are not cherished and not protected. And so maybe first of all, let's set a baseline for our conversation. Could you really lead us through an understanding of maybe a definition of child abuse, what really constitutes child abuse?

And then maybe some of those things that are hidden in the even in the body of Christ that we don't perhaps recognize immediately as being abusive, but are but are things that really should be outside the bounds of what's acceptable to us? Sure.

So the challenge in that, I I enjoy that question, and it it's really interesting. You're gonna hear me answer it a couple of different ways. I mean, child abuse is the the physical, the emotional, the social endangerment of a child and what what constitutes endangerment or abuse is is the hot topic. What I've appreciated, especially when I've studied mandated reporting laws, is that many states have done a really good job of of writing a definition of for abuse that not just says what abuse is, but it also speaks to what it isn't. Right?

So any good law, any good definition doesn't just wanna describe what something is. It wants to be clear on what it is not as well. What makes it tricky answering that question is from state to state, there is a slight difference in what things they constitute as abuse or not or abusive, but they're always evaluating both potential both current safety and potential harm, future harm. Right? So it's not even an act that has created abuse, it's also the potential for harm.

So for example, supervision issues or putting children in risky situations or even putting your child around a known sex offender can be considered abusive or for the potential for harm. And so that's where you see even some of the definitions of child abuse, emerging, evolving, broadening. But they look at what the key categories, it's physical abuse, it's sexual abuse or exploitation, which has been added over the years based on need. You have mental injury that used to formerly be known as verbal abuse. And then you have a lot of new phrases coming in as well, of creating potential harm, things like exposing children to meth labs and and things like that.

So child abuse, the language and the definitions have actually expanded over the years as needs have arisen.

Yeah. And I think, you know Mhmm. I I think a lot of people, you know, think of maybe abuse totally in the physical realm. Right? Mhmm.

Certainly, we think of excessive corporal punishment or or some type of of of physical altercation. Unfortunately, obviously, molestation, sexual abuse. But abuse can also be very subtle. Can you maybe even talk a little bit more about, especially when we're thinking even from a biblical Christian standpoint, what constitutes abuse that even if it's allowed by the law is really something we wanna make sure that we steer away from?

Well, that's a great question. So what is abuse that even though the law may not constitute it? I think in as a counselor, what I perpetually see in counseling are things that feel so gray like exposure to inappropriate content. Mhmm. So there are things now at child exploitation that says you expose kids to certain things and certain pornographic things, but, it can be conversations in the home.

It can be the a lot the things children are are exposed to on media and technology. It can be inappropriate sexual language used on a regular basis. Things that maybe don't rise to a mandated reporting, but they're certainly damaging and certainly poor parenting or poor education or poor whatever it is, whoever the adult is doing them, but they feel intangible. With today's technology, that is happening more and more. That's like the new venue for children being abused, in ways that the laws are still trying to catch up with.

Yeah. And, I mean, did you say that? You know, I think about how much more, unfortunately, pornographic our society is, mainstream pornographic, how much more vile language has become, again, mainstream language. And, of course, the access is at all time high, as you mentioned, because of technology. You know, I think a lot of these things, unfortunately, we become comfortable to, and we let our guard down even in in protecting our children.

And then, certainly, those families that don't have the resources that may not have had someone pouring into them, the protection is is is is even less. You know, obviously, we talked even in the opening that April marked child abuse, you know, protective Protection Month and Prevention Month. And obviously, this is a good thing because we want to raise awareness. But what would you say are are maybe some of the specific actions or initiatives that with this attention, communities and and others can actively take to prevent child abuse?

Yeah. One of the biggest ways, I think, is to educate our families, to educate our homes, and so we can have the perception that abuse is outside our walls, outside our churches, outside our ministries, that it happens in the inner cities, that happens in other places and as a foster adoptive mom, I know for sure it does, but as a counselor, I can also attest to how often it happens in church, in Christian families, between Christian families, and yet we still continue to be naive to that because we're not guarding our own homes well. We're not guarding our own children, the things they're being exposed to, the content they're being exposed to. So it's equipping the family. It's equipping the church to say that these things are everywhere and how do we raise safe competent children, not fearful children?

How do we teach kids to be more discerning and to be able to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad, good from evil. So I think there is a need that parents and adults alike and and ministry leaders alike are talking to young people about navigating what is evil and what is good so that they can recognize abuse when it comes about.

Mhmm. Yeah. Julie, I'm I I wanna kinda press into that a little bit and and what you, you know, what you just said about, you know, really working with families, and working with the church as an extension of the family to, to provide education. And I think, honestly, part of the problem is we lack for really good models of seeing churches that are proactively engaged in helping families in this way. And And so I guess maybe my view from the cheap seats a little bit is that we've done a lot to safeguard through policy and procedure.

We've done a lot to to create systems in the church that provide for safety for children. And and that's been a that's kind of been a preoccupation over the last 15 years or so. But I think what's lagged behind in the conversation is just the practical education part of of talking to people about what abuse is, about how to see it, how to spot it, and also just about how to talk about it with our children in ways that are that are helpful and, you know, kinda not not strange. Right? But it's part of the normal conversation that we're having with our kids about how to negotiate the world.

And so, I'd love it if you could just kind of go into that a little bit more to give folks a little bit of a practical view of what does it look like for a church to enter into the to the educational part of this with families and to kind of walk alongside helping families to be able to have these conversations with their kids and to do it well?

Yeah. Yeah. I love that question. That's that's the heart of what needs to happen. And so going back to what you said, you had this overall view years ago.

Abuse was bad, but we didn't do anything to be protective. Then you enter it in, well, we can do clearances and criminal checks or what policies. Well, that's great, but that only catches the known offenders who have already offended. That doesn't do anything to protect those who have not been caught yet. And then you have churches trying to tighten their policies and procedures and their rules about how many adults and where, you know, who's monitoring hallways and, you know, all those things that are really, really good too.

But we have still negated the educational piece of ground up, and the ground up is the families. And ironically, in ministry and churches, we're all about the family, we're all about strengthening the family. But are we strengthening them to talk about the hard topics like abuse and sexuality and safety and things like that from, by the way, biblical perspective. So even there is a challenge because we don't know how to think well and biblically about it. We've we've kind of handed that over to the secular system to do all this education instead of us thoughtfully saying, God has something to say about deceptive behavior and predatory behavior.

Scripture and Proverbs all over the place talks about the deceptive man who speaks peace with his mouth while evil is in his heart. Like, the language is there for grooming and, deception. So you have that understanding good from evil and how it works and how it ruins and how it moves towards people. Then you have just the very practical, our kids need to know good from evil. Now that seems simplistic when you're talking about abuse, but I would argue it's so vital in today's culture where, the world is turning good evil and evil good.

So you have Hebrews, 514, which is one of these past verses I really enjoy that says, the mature have their powers of discernment that come from constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So how do we keep our kids safe? I'd say, first of all, we raise children to know good from evil, right from wrong, wise for unwise, morally ambiguous from that which is a wise or profitable, you know, what's permissible is profitable. So it says the powers of discernment. How do we gain discernment?

Well, we teach good from evil. And as they get older, they become more mature in their discernment. And how does that happen? By constant practice, practice, which is the skill of role playing and talking with our kids in Deuteronomy 6 whether we're walking along the way or sitting down arise when we see something happening out in public or on the news, are we stopping with our children and we engaging with them about making sense of their experience? Are we giving them the skill of discernment?

Well, where in child abuse is anybody talking about teaching kids discernment, which is vital to seeing and noticing things when they're a mess. And you do that, you're helping children when grooming behavior start to have a radar up and say, something odd is happening here or something's making me uncomfortable or he's just crossed the line with me. That makes me uncomfortable, and kids are learning discerning behaviors, discerning skills. That's ground up work, and we're not gonna do that with children if we're not equipping the adults or the parents to do that.

Yeah. Julie, I I think it it it's interesting to me. I mean, we know that Satan's a deceiver. Right? Like, we know we know that the enemy uses confusion and deception in order to, you know, to lead us away from the things that God has for us and from the world as it should be.

And part of that deception, I think, is the parents feel some degree of shame at times in talking to these things about their children or to their children. But by the same token, we realize that we live in a world that doesn't know shame. And the world out there is unashamed to talk about things that are shameful. And the whole dichotomy of this thing is that we're living bashfully in under a cloak of shame, not wanting to address topics that are talking about gender and sexuality and all those sorts of things. Talking about appropriateness and God's design in ways that help our children to understand the goodness of God's design and to see the way that that's being just lived out shamefully in the world.

And so, practically for let's start with church leaders. Practically from the perspective of church leaders that are trying to come alongside families to reorient that shame equation. How do we start to encourage our families to have those conversations that they find uncomfortable and and that they that they feel a sense of anxiety over in in ways that sort of break through that and focus on God's design?

Yeah. Well, you you do it from the pulpit. And so that just means you do it in the public forum that a a good ministry is gonna model that because a lot of us inherently are believing, that is somehow embarrassing or shameful to talk about sex at all. But, yeah, our kids are growing up in a culture that's that's talking to them all the time about it and redefining it for them. And so addressing how we as adults can see the conversation shameful instead of saying, well, God created it.

It's good. God creates. The world corrupts. God creates sex and gender and relationships I mean, positive, god given created view. So in order to help parents do that, I think from the pulpit, we need to do that.

From the public forum, we need to have those conversations. We need to make it clear that this should be a e not an easy, but a comfortable conversation. And I have to model it. So even when I'm uncomfortable, I need to act comfortable because I need to demonstrate that no topic self limits. If God created it, it must be good.

Now let's start there because eventually the world will come in and corrupt it and they need to have an accurate view of it. So I think it starts with the public forum and we model that to to families.

Yeah. I love that. And and, you know, and I think that that the the fact is that we, I mean, that's exactly what the enemy wants us to do, right? To to leave those things under a cloak of darkness and to not address them so that, you know, so that the world, you know, in its corruption, in the sin and brokenness of the world can, you know, can can deal with those things. And I I think, understanding that we live first under the authority of the word of God.

And that God has has given us an understanding of his good right design. And so, part of how we do it is we take our kids to the scriptures, right? We tell them what God's good counsel is and about what the Lord says about what's true about the world. And we, you know, it's the old it's the old adage, right? How do you how do you, you know, how does the Secret Service, teach the agents to spot a counterfeit?

Well, they

They got to know the real

thing. Right. They look at the genuine article and they know it so well that they can spot a fraud. And that's very much the way that we need to, you know, approach this with our kids. And and so I think, you know, the second thing that we kinda talk about in all this is is really that spirit of vigilance that, and I think that's both from an educational point of view, like we've talked about, But we don't want to minimize the fact that we also have a responsibility to vigilance in our policies and procedures and our ways of doing things that safeguard and enjoy, really ensure the safety of our children.

But here's maybe this a little bit out of left field. And we'll see how this question lands. But what I'm curious about is, how do we do that? And do all the things we're supposed to do, but not turn the church into a place that focuses on those policies and procedures. That that's a place that's loving and including and all the things we wanna be so that we really put the gospel on display in everything we do.

Well, you're hitting on why I think the language of discernment is more important than the language policy and procedure. So policies and procedures are important. Right? But we're relying on external things to keep us safe rather than characterological things, and the ability to notice and observe and evaluate. And we're afraid of that in the church because we use the language of judgment.

And who wants to misjudge somebody? I certainly would not wanna be judged as a, a predator. And so that that judgment language that we're we're called not to judge, we're called to believe or presume the best about somebody, prevents us from wanting to believe. Plus we sometimes I think we think we have more ability to know somebody's character than we actually do. And so one of the things I say is, yeah, we're we don't know somebody's motives, but we can always know their behavior and words.

And so giving the skill of saying I'm called to judge, I'm training my kids to judge people's behaviors and words and actions because that will demonstrate their character. There. So although I might not always know somebody's character or at least I can only know how they present themselves, I'm always gonna teach to evaluate words and actions and behavior.

So one of the things I probably heard Herbie say about a 1000000 times is that accountability is the friend of integrity. Mhmm. And, you know, and and the fact is that, the things that we do provide a forum for us to be able to show our integrity before the Lord. And I love the way that you put the focus on discernment, as a way to to say, you know, when when something feels askew, when something seems askew, then how do we evaluate that in terms of what we know to be right and in terms of what we know to be wrong? And not maybe to do that always in an accusatory way, but to also just not ignore, what the Lord has given us.

And Herbie, I know you believe that. And that's something that you and Ashley have practiced with your kids and it's something you live. And, it's a hard thing to do, but it's something you have to be constantly involved in. Right?

Yeah. 100%. You bring accountability in order that you can see integrity and and we tell our kids the reason that we are being very cautious and careful, of course, our kids are older now, but especially when they were younger, about the situations and the places that we're putting you. The reason we're asking questions that maybe other parents aren't asking is because we wanna make sure that there's a system and and and a place of accountability. You know, and, certainly, I guess, we could talk a lot about safeguarding our kids.

But, Julie, one of the things that, unfortunately, is a reality, especially for a lot of our audience that adopted, that are currently foster parents or have fostered, is you bring a child into your home and then you find out that that child has been abused. Counsel a family right now of, kind of, what are those next steps? Because, you know, I know you and your husband have been foster parents and, you know, unfortunately, the statistics state that at least one of those children that have been in your home probably had uncovered abuse that that started to work itself out in your home. I think sometimes, you know, in adoption and foster care, we always kinda tell ourselves, it's not gonna be us. Like, our child's not gonna be the one that has experienced abuse, that that has had, you know, sexual abuse or even physical or mental or psychological abuse.

But but talk to that parent real quick who first is at shock because they just realized that their child has has been abused. I'd love to hear you first say, okay, talk to the parents about how do they deal with it, but then how do they work out then helping that child get the help and the healing that they need?

Sure. So a parent can respond in multiple ways, anger, shame, embarrassment, shock, disbelief, denial. And so some of that is you need people to walk alongside you and help you process it. You can't you can't think as clearly as you think you're thinking clearly. And I it's just always helpful to have a second opinion of people who have been through it with you so you're not doing it alone.

That's what communities for. And you want people around you that understand the nature of it, that aren't gonna misguide you, mislead you, go down the wrong paths as well. So first step is don't don't handle it alone. Get help. Of course, professional help and counseling is always gonna be a good idea, with few exceptions, but you want people that are gonna help your family, help your child navigate, how to think about it, how to respond to it, how to process it, and work through it.

But you any good counselor is gonna have to help you as parents as well. So if a parent slipped out of that process, that's a red flag to me that the parents need to be equipped to know how to help their children. And parents often are struggling with their own emotions too. Did I fail? Was I part of the problem?

Why didn't I catch this? You know, it could be multiple different levels of of answers or questions or anger, bitterness. So we're all different. Right? Those all those reactions make sense.

There are things we would see, but having people walk alongside you who have an understanding of the nature of this and can help you understand it. Then there's always an educational piece. So there's the process piece working through, the hard things and how it's impacted a child and a family and also rippling effect on siblings and and other people that are, impacted by it. But then there is the educational piece. How do you how can you help equip this child and family to know the signs moving forward, to feel not afraid of the future, not afraid of it happening again, but confident that they'll know what to do should anything happen again.

So, Julie, I I feel like we've kinda taken a number of different routes and we've kinda talked a lot about, you know, different angles from the church's responsibility to the responsibility of parents, to how we, you know, how we react when we find out that a child in our home has, you know, has suffered abuse. And and one of the things that I love is the the fact that the Lord has taken your personal experience and your professional know how and preparation and work and has brought that all together to give you a ministry that is about speaking into the church about how we think about and how we act on all these things. And so, one of the things I want to make sure we do before we close out today is that we we kinda give folks a little bit of an insight into some of the things that you're doing and some of the things that are on the horizon. And I know that you have I believe you have a forthcoming book that's on the way. And so we'd love for you to talk about that for just a second and and give folks the, you know, the understanding of where they can find, you know, the things that the Lord's doing with you.

Sure. You want me to jump in and share some of that?

Yeah, please.

Okay. Well, so I've I've written several books. The most recent one that addresses this topic is called, Safeguards, Shielding Our Home, Equipping Our Kids. And it is for the family member, the adult, the parent on talking about how do you talk to your kids about these hard topics? How do you help them navigate a world not with fear and worry and insecurity, but being equipped to go out and know right from wrong and and addresses things, then it gets really practical and talks about things like abuse, bullying, things online, pornography, sexting, dating, consent, independence, you know, how does a young family interview a babysitter?

What kind of things how do they talk to their kids in ways that don't instill fear but equip them? So, that book actually launched, a lot more conversations and that that stemmed from going out to churches regularly after abuses happened. I would go out do trainings and they would regularly ask what what are preventative things we can do and I would regularly say you need to equip parents, parents need to know this stuff, parents need to know how to talk to their kids about this stuff without teaching their kids to be afraid, but to be competent and confident. And as a result now, I'm working on a project with 2 other women educators on taking that book and turning it into a curriculum for Christian schools on safety skills. So that is currently in the works as we speak.

That's awesome. And you're also involved with, and I'm gonna make sure that I try to get this right with an organization that we're partnered with, the Evangelical Council For Abuse Prevention. And one of the things that's happening right now is the ECAP is in the midst of with you a national tour of a number of dates and a number of stops around the country on what's being called the Safeguards for Kids tour. And so can you give us just a little bit, maybe just a little snippet of what's going on as a part of the Safeguards for Kids tour? And we're going to put in the show notes for folks to be able to know where those sites are and how they can get involved and how they can get registered.

But, tell them why they should wanna come.

Yeah. It is a a great time. It's about 3 hours of your time on a Saturday usually and you'll hear from me for part of that time speaking on how do we equip our kids, and just very practical how to talk to kids, how as adults and parents we can help our children learn good skills for for navigating the world around them. And then in many of the tours, we have the secret service coming out and doing online safety. Great great presentation of here are the dangers online that your children you need to know about, that your children have to navigate.

And then 1 more child also speaks, and they are a ministry about child exploitation and sex trafficking. And again, they help us see how this this isn't out there. This is our young people being groomed online on many of the social media accounts many of our Christian families and kids have and teaching them to navigate these dangers and be aware of those. It's great tour that helps also, introduce you to ECAP, which is a wonderful ministry trying to help, educate and support and train and equip, certified ministries in the area of abuse prevention as well. So highly recommend it.

Yeah. Lifeline is a friend of ECAP and a partner ministry. And we really believe in in what ECAP is doing to try to bring a sense of of unity around the body of Christ as we think about how to safeguard children and how to proactively step into the space in ways that we really understand the world around us. And I think as a parent and now a grandparent, one of the things that is really intimidating to me is the pace at which things change and the numbers of fronts that we have to we find ourselves having to be aware of and having to be vigilant in order to provide safety for our kids. And so ECAPS put this tour together as a way to be able to give you a little bit of a shortcut to understanding not only what abuse is and how to think about prevention of it in your home and in your church, but also how to be prepared to understand the world around us in ways that are really, really helpful.

And so we commend the ministry of ECAP to you. We encourage you and your church to get engaged and understand what it means to be on guard. Because at the end of the day, as believers, we want to do what we do excellently. And we want to be a model for the rest of the world in ways that we could care for and ultimately safeguard children. And those of us that live in this space of vulnerable children know that part of the vulnerability that our kids face is is not being protected, from from all of these evils and and from the predators that would want to, you know, that would want to see them and would want to attack.

And so, Julie, thanks for being with us. We appreciate the ministry that the Lord's given you. And we look forward hopefully maybe to a future conversation where we can unpack more of this. And again, we invite you to come see Julie and the rest of the ECAAP folks on their tour. We'll put that information in the show notes.

We'll put information about Julie's books and where you can find her and the way that you can connect with her personally in your church. And we just want to say thank you for joining us on the defender podcast. We do what we do here because the Lord has called us to use the way that we minister to children, particularly vulnerable children and vulnerable families, as a way to show his heart and ultimately a way to point people to the truth of the gospel. And so we pray that you've been helped, that you've been encouraged, and that the Lord will use you this week in ways that will serve the vulnerable and ultimately, will put the kingdom of God on display. And so I'm Rick Morton.

Thank you for being with us. And we invite you to meet us right back here next week for another edition of the Defender Podcast.

Thanks for listening to the Defender Podcast. If you enjoy making this podcast a part of your weekly routine, we'd love for you to take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the Defender Podcast to make it easier for more people to find. For more information on how you and your church can partner with Lifeline, visit us at lifelinechild.org. If you want to connect with me, please visit herbynewell.com. Follow us at Lifeline on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching for Lifeline Child.

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