| - | that his team is not bonded, nor do they reuqrie background checks. What we are offering is simply friendship / moral support from fellow staff kids or alumni who have all journeyed through their own stories of recovery and want to help. So we are not bonded, and no – while some of us have had police checks for a variety of reasons, it’s not a reuqriement, anymore than we would expect you to get such checks in order that you could converse with some of these same survivors. We are people who want to care for others who are hurting. By way of example, let’s say that you find out that someone you know is going through a major crisis – they lost their job, they’re having a marriage breakdown, their husband is diagnosed with cancer, their son is killed in a car accident, they tell you they’re working through the devastating effects of child abuse. What do you do? What does any friend do? You take them for coffee. You listen. You go over. You phone. You listen. You have them over. You listen some more. You hug them. You tell them you care. Sometimes you cry when they do. You don’t go all preachy on them. You don’t give them pat answers. You listen some more. You keep on caring and loving them. Maybe you take them a meal. You just walk them through the crisis as a friend. They may need professional help, grief counseling, abuse counseling, or cancer survivor counseling from the hospital chaplain. You encourage them to go get that help too. You keep listening. You may find them books to read or a DVD to watch if they’re ready for that. And you just keep caring. These are simple and compassionate responses that all of us, including those of you reading this, are very familiar with, I’m sure.OK, so it’s a little different in this case, cuz we’re probably dealing with long distance relationships here. We can’t have you over, take you for coffee, or bring you dinner. So we email, we Skype, we talk on the phone, we listen, we PM through FB – whatever. In regards to which abuse survivors qualify to be be-friended by the Survivor Fun Project team: the perpetrator had to be on staff at the time of the abuse in order to qualify for funding. It was not intended to imply that the perp still has to be around PBI. Regarding qualifications for abuse survivors: There are no “qualifications” or hoops to jump through to have a listening ear, except you’re your story must be yours (not someone else’s) and should have taken place in the context of PBI life. Listening to your story does not mean we assume that your abuse is trite or that what we offer is all you need. We are just one piece of the healing puzzle. I think everyone who has abuse in their background should seek professional help. PBI is not paying the Survivor Fund Project team, other than the submission of expenses and Jim Crites is not the head of this project: We get no pay from PBI and do not report anything to anyone at PBI except for the submission of anonymous expense receipts. I’m not the head of this group. There isn’t really an official “leader”. We’re just a bunch of people who are connected through social networking and want to care in any way we can. Where reuqried, we refer individuals to further help if they indicate that is the journey they want to embark on.
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