Change starts with you.

Here’s where to begin.

  • Start with these survivors’ stories. 

  • Learn about trauma-informed and survivor-sensitive responses to abuse by exploring materials on our Resources page.

  • Read your parish and ministry policies about abuse prevention and response.

  • Compare current diocesan policies with what you learn about best practices.

  • Follow ACNAtoo on social media to participate in discussions and get the latest updates.


Make the ACNA a safer church with the following actions.

  • Promote the use of abuse prevention training (such as GRACE) that prioritizes the appropriate care of survivors of abuse rather than the legal protection of churches that have been sites of abuse.

  • Create a trauma-informed and survivor-sensitive team to respond to abuse in each diocese. Pay these people for their time.  

  • Implement policies to protect abuse reporters from bullying and retaliation in every diocese.

  • Review diocesan constitutions & canons for loopholes that allow conflicts of interest. These conflicts of interest prevent accountability & allow abuses of power to flourish.

  • Update every single diocese and parish website to make safety policies readable, accessible, and user friendly.

  • Update every single diocese and parish website with an easy-to-find, easy-to-use, safe way of reporting abuse to an outside party like an ombudsperson.  

  • Ask your clergy to publicly address the ways that the church is working to make sure policies for abuse prevention and response are trauma-informed, survivor-sensitive, and conform to current best practices.

  • Ask the people that run your children’s ministry and/or safety training practices how you can support them with concrete actions. Do not expect them to do all the work or already have all the answers.

Do Not

  1. Tell yourself or others that “We don’t really know what is going on” about survivors’ claims if you have not read their statements and the documentation they have given to support it. 

  2. Let anyone else tell you that you need to wait to take any action or form any opinions until some sort of investigation is completed.

  3. Pray and lament yet fail to take further action.

  4. Wait for someone to tell you what to do.

  5. Wait for the lawyers of the province or diocese to tell the bishops what they can say.

  6. Wait for your bishops to respond to this crisis instead of contacting them yourself. 

  7. Assume that your leaders will do the right thing in the right way with appropriate speed and agility befitting the urgency of these crises if they do not demonstrate this in their actions.

  8. Allow for your leaders to handle this quietly behind closed doors.