Updat­ed to reflect the pan­el has hap­pened: On Wednes­day the 23rd there was a Zoom pan­el on the March issue of Friends Jour­nal, “Safe­ty in Meet­ings,” co-sponsored by the mag­a­zine and by Quak­ers in Pas­toral Care and Coun­sel­ing (QPCC).

The March 2022 issue of Friends Jour­nal, Safe­ty in Meet­ings, has brought up impor­tant ques­tions and ideas for Friends con­cerned with pas­toral care and abuse pre­ven­tion. How do we rec­og­nize when the unthink­able hap­pens; how do we heal? How can we be open and wel­com­ing to all peo­ple; do clear bound­aries and com­mu­ni­ty expec­ta­tions con­tribute to that? Is there a Quak­er wit­ness to pro­tect the vul­ner­a­ble in our community?

Our pan­elists are QPC­C’s Bruce Heck­man and Friends Jour­nal authors Kody Hersh (Sacred Respon­si­bil­i­ty), Jade Rock­well (Sheep Among Wolves), Melin­da Wen­ner Bradley and Sita Diehl (Friend­ship and Care), joined by facil­i­ta­tors from both Friends Jour­nal and QPCC. 

Big props to FJ’s vol­un­teer co-news edi­tor Windy Cool­er, who’s been orga­niz­ing all this (she also con­duct­ed an inter­view for the issue).

Over forty peo­ple came to the pre­sen­ta­tion. It was quite mov­ing and itself mod­eled a car­ing com­mu­ni­ty. I’m grate­ful to see this issue be get­ting more atten­tion from Friends. It was not record­ed, for pri­va­cy’s sake, but there will be fol­low up.