Since mid-2015, Safe Horizon staff has worked with more than 400 children who identify as Jewish, or Orthodox Jewish. Our work with the children includes providing assistance during an investigation of child abuse, facilitating the forensic interview of any child in the home, coordinating medical evaluations at the JBBCAC with a child abuse medical expert, and providing on-site case management and mental health services, as well as linkages to off-site resources. In 2018 alone, we worked with 105 Orthodox families, including 74 children involved in new abuse allegations.
On October 11, 2018, in collaboration with the Deputy Bureau Chief of the New York City Police Department Sex Crimes Bureau, we facilitated a workshop on mandated reporting for mental health and advocacy groups in Brooklyn’s Orthodox communities. Approximately 30 attendees explored the scale of the problem of sexual abuse, New York State law, and the responsibilities of mandated reporters. Guest speaker Rabbi YY Jacobson spoke eloquently on the need to report allegations of abuse and supported a trauma-informed treatment model, such as the one implemented by Safe Horizon. In concluding his highly emotional and compelling speech, Rabbi Jacobson said to those in attendance, “The greatest gift I can give a survivor is empathy, support, unconditional love, and an unconditional ear and heart, but together with a powerful faith in their power, in their ability, in their potential, in their innermost core that nobody can take from them…”
A video of Rabbi Jacobson’s speech is available below, or click here.