Harrisburg, U.S.A. — The enactment of Senate Bill 449 into law, which now requires teachers and other school personnel to be trained to recognize and report child abuse, is the culmination of nearly five years of effort by the Pennsylvania Family Support Alliance (PFSA)—an effort that began well before the Jerry Sandusky case thrust child abuse into the national spotlight.

PFSA is a statewide nonprofit agency that annually trains more than 8,000 “mandated reporters” in how to recognize and report suspected child abuse. Mandated reporters are professionals who have regular contact with children by virtue of their jobs.

“Pennsylvanians should be grateful to everyone who had a hand in bringing this to fruition—including the members of the House and Senate; Gov. Tom Corbett, who last week signed the legislation into law; and in particular state Sen. Pat Vance of Cumberland County, who got behind this measure from the very beginning,” said PFSA Executive Director Angela Liddle.

PFSA began working with Vance on legislation for required training of school personnel in November 2009.

Final passage came shortly after a series of guilty verdicts in the child sex abuse trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

“Obviously we are very gratified that we have finally achieved what we regard as an important milestone in protecting the children of Pennsylvania,” Liddle said, “but we also recognize that there is much more to be done.”

She said PFSA would now work to require training as part of initial and ongoing certification and licensure requirements for professions that regularly come into contact with children.

“It is sad that it took something like the Sandusky case to finally bring the needed attention to the issue of child abuse,” Liddle said. “It is now up to all of us not to let this slip back into the shadows.”

Liddle has repeatedly emphasized that training is key in making sure that vigilance against child abuse is effective. She said school personnel and other mandated reporters, such as physicians and members of the clergy, need to understand how abuse manifests itself and how to make proper reports to the authorities.

The new training law applies to personnel at public schools, charter schools, cyber schools, private schools, nonpublic schools, intermediate units and area vocational-technical schools.

It allows school employees to receive credits toward their continuing profession education requirements for taking the training. A minimum of three hours of training is required every five years.

Statistics compiled by the state Department of Public Welfare (DPW) confirm that schools are by far the largest single source of child abuse reports from mandated reporters. More than 24,000 reports of suspected child abuse were filed in Pennsylvania in 2011, according to DPW, and of those more than 3,400 were substantiated. DPW said 34 children died from abuse in Pennsylvania in 2011.

In addition to providing training for mandated reporters, PFSA is the Pennsylvania sponsor of The Front Porch Project, a community-based training initiative that educates the general public about how to protect children from abuse.

PFSA also works with more than 50 affiliate agencies across Pennsylvania to provide information, educational materials, and programs that teach and support good parenting practices.

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After twenty-one hours of deliberation the jury in the Jerry Sandusky trial found Sandusky guilty on forty-five of the remaining forty-eight counts against him. His sentencing could be over four hundred years. These guilty verdicts prove that the jury rejected the defense’s claim that the victims were lying to win money in a civil suit.

The biggest fear for the victims and their families was that Sandusky would be found innocent, according to ABC News.

Victim 1′s mother stated, “it was very hard on [my son]. Even after therapy, he doesn’t feel comfortable saying what happened to him to me.” Victim 1 was the first to come forward in this recent investigation of Sandusky. Another investigation began in 1998 but was later dropped.

The mother of Victim 1 said that her son has been seeking out counseling at the foundation “Let Go…Let Peace Come In.” According to the director of the foundation, Peter Pelullo, “what people don’t really understand is when we’re touched like that as a child… part of our brain just shuts down and we need mental help and care to connect those brain stems, which were completely burned out.”

Sandusky was found guilty of forty-five of forty-eight child molestation related charges. Originally he was charged with fifty-two but one was withdrawn by the prosecution and three were dismissed by the judge. The charges range over ten victims and fifteen years.

The jury seems to have been unconvinced by the testimony of Dottie Sandusky. She appeared as a loving and loyal wife but refused to admit that the abuse was going on.

Sandusky’s lawyers claim that they will try to appeal the verdict citing several different reasons as grounds. The defense lawyers tried to have themselves removed from the Sandusky case at one point and also claimed that they did not have enough time to prepare their case. Perhaps the only grounds that would be considered by the courts is a tape that was misleadingly edited by NBC; however, ABC News claims the video will most likely be called a harmless error.

Juror Joshua Harper stated after the trial, “I looked at him during the reading of the verdict, and the look on his face, no real emotion, just kind of accepting, you know, because he knew it was true.” After the trial the jurors heard that Matt Sandusky had come forward during their deliberations to say that he was also a victim of his adoptive father. Harper stated, “we were all basically told at the same time, we heard about it at the same time, and we were just looking at each other like we had suspected that but we had no evidence of it. It just solidified our decision.”

Now that Sandusky has been found guilty it is likely that Penn State, The Second Mile, and Sandusky will be sued by the victims and their families. During the case it was revealed that Head Coach Joe Paterno as well as Vice President Schultz at Penn State knew about Sandusky’s crimes. The only action Penn State took was to take away Sandusky’s keys to the locker room and to tell his foundation The Second Mile; no one called law enforcement.

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After staying silent for more than six months Dottie Sandusky broke her silence on June 19 in defense of her husband, assistant coach for the Penn State football team Jerry Sandusky. Jerry Sandusky has been charged with forty-eight counts (four counts were dismissed) of sexual abuse with ten different victims and will serve five hundred years in prison if found guilty.

Dottie Sandusky, born Dorothy Gross, met Sandusky in Washington, Pennsylvania and the couple got married shortly thereafter in 1966. They were unable to have children of their own so they adopted six children together. She maintains her husband’s innocence and claims that she never heard or saw anything suspicious.

Paul DerOhannesian, a defense attorney from Albany, New York, claimed that Dottie Sandusky would provide, “a more favorable image of Sandusky as someone attracted to his wife, as someone who had a genuine care and interest in children, and to portray more elements of Sandusky’s life than the jury has heard.”

However, after the witness testimony from the defense many agree with experts that she may have been unaware or in denial of the abuse. Dr. Martin Finkel, a pediatrician who has worked for more than thirty years with sexually abused children, says that Dottie Sandusky could be denying her suspicions because she is afraid of the humiliation and the loss of financial security. Finkel added, “none of this stuff that happens to kids ever happens in the public arena. It always has to happen in the context of secrecy. It has to happen out of sight. The intent on the part of the perpetrator obviously is not to get caught.”

Several victims have mentioned Dottie Sandusky in their testimonies. Victim 9 claimed that he screamed for help during at least one of the abuses from Sandusky while he was in the basement of the Sandusky home. Victim 9 claims that he stayed in the Sandusky home basement around one hundred times during which time Sandusky fondled him, forced him to have oral sex, and raped him. Dottie Sandusky said that not only did she never hear anything but that the basement is not soundproofed at all and that she has good hearing, implying that Victim 9, now eighteen, is lying.

Another victim claimed that Dottie Sandusky walked in on Jerry Sandusky trying to force the victim to perform oral sex in a hotel bathroom at Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Dottie Sandusky claims that the victim is lying and that they both were fully clothed.

After nine days of trial the jury began deliberations on June 21. Since the jury has forty-eight counts of abuse to sift through they will probably be deliberating for quite a long time.

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The Sandusky trial has heard the testimonies of several victims who met Sandusky through his charitable organization for at-risk youth, The Second Mile. Sandusky has been charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse over a ten year period and will serve five hundred years if he is found guilty. The victims, although identified by name in the trial, do not wish to have their identities revealed.

Victim 5 was only abused once by Sandusky in 1998. He was referred to The Second Mile to improve his spoken English. Sandusky invited the boy to some football games and then to work out with him. After working out for a short time, Sandusky suggested they take a shower. According to the victim, Sandusky “threw some soap at me and started lathering my shoulders. I crept forward a little bit more, as did he, and I felt his body on my back. I kept lurching forward but I didn’t have anywhere to go.”

Victim 6 met Sandusky in 1998 around the age of eleven. His interactions with Sandusky resulted in an investigation in 1998 but no charges were filed. According to the victim Sandusky “bear-hugged” him in the locker-room shower after practicing wrestling moves with the coach for about fifteen minutes. The victim testified “I felt uncomfortable with it, but it was Jerry Sandusky so I didn’t want to make him move.” When Sandusky started to soap him up he felt even more uncomfortable stating, “at that point, it just was escalating the uncomfortableness but I was just trying not to make him feel that I was feeling a bit awkward about it.” Shortly after the bear-hug the victim claims he blacked out. “[the bear hug] is the last thing I remember about being in the shower. It’s all black.”

Victim 6 maintained contact with Sandusky including texting him on Father’s day, borrowing his car, getting tickets to games, and going on a mission trip to Mexico. The Penn State police investigated Sandusky after the boy’s mother became suspicious; however, no files were charged and there was no further sexual contact reported.

Ronald Schreffler, a former detective for Penn State, said that he eavesdropped on conversations with Sandusky and the boy’s mother and heard the assistant coach tell her, “I wish I could ask for forgiveness. I know I will not get it from you. I wish I were dead.” Shortly thereafter Schreffler recommended to Sandusky that he should not shower with boys again; Sandusky agreed saying he had used “bad judgment.”

The defense claims that although Sandusky has acted somewhat unseemly and inappropriately, he is not a molester. Instead, the defense claims that all of the victims are lying to get money from the university and Sandusky. Sandusky’s defense originally attempted to dismiss the letters from Victim 4 as evidence. Now the defense is using the letters to explain that Sandusky is mentally ill, claiming that they will “explain that the words, tones, requests, and statements made in the letters are consistent with a person who suffers from a Histrionic Personality Disorder.”

The National Institute of Health states that people with Histrionic Personality Disorder “act in a very emotional and dramatic way that draws attention to themselves.”

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The Sandusky trial, which began June 11, has heard the testimony of eight victims. The trial ended June 14, earlier than expected, but with plenty of testimony and evidence presented by the prosecution. Jerry Sandusky is charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse over a ten year period. He will serve five hundred years if he is found guilty of all of them.

Although the victims are identified by name in the trial, none of them wished to be revealed in the public. The Toonari Post will only refer to the victims by numbers.

Victim 1, currently 18, met Sandusky through Sandusky’s charitable organization, The Second Mile, a charity for at-risk youth. Victim 1 claimed that he stayed in the basement at Sandusky’s house more than one hundred times. Sandusky would come down to the basement to say goodnight and began making contact with the boy by kissing him on the cheek or forehead. Sandusky’s contact eventually escalated to more explicitly sexual contact when Victim 1 testified that Sandusky “rub[bed] underneath my shorts” and “put his mouth on my privates.” The victim testified that Sandusky said, “’it’s your turn’” and then the victim added, “he made me put my mouth on his privates.”

Mike McQueary, the assistant coach of the Penn State Football team, testified that he saw Sandusky performing what he believed was anal sex with a boy in the team showers. The victim, known as Victim 2, has not been found by authorities, according to Fox News. The incident reportedly took place in February 2001, although McQueary originally believed it was 2002. McQueary told school officials about the incident but never actually used the phrase ‘anal sex’ because he was too “embarrassed.”

Victim 3 testifed that he slept over at Sandusky’s house over fifty times in a three year period (1998-2001). The boy met Sandusky when he was eleven years old. He stated that the coach would tickle him, blow on his stomach, kiss his shoulder, and would sometimes touch his penis. He testified that at one point Sandusky “pinned me to the floor, pulled down my gym shorts, and started to perform oral sex on me.” Victim 3 also stated that he showered with Sandusky in the Penn State University showers and that Sandusky would soap him up and bear-hug him from behind and from the front. After the victim was put into foster care, he stopped hearing from Sandusky.

Victim 4, who is now 28, -like most of Sandusky’s victims – also met Sandusky through The Second Mile. Victim 4 stated that he had no parental supervision before Sandusky entered his life. This is similar to the situations of the other victims according to statements they made about foster care and absent fathers. Victim 4 claimed that he regularly gave Sandusky oral sex in the showers stating, “it would have to be forty times, at least.” Sandusky also tried to penetrate him in the shower and would caress him and kiss his thighs. The victim also claimed that Sandusky would buy him cigarettes and drove him to buy marijuana. “He treated me like a son in front of other people. Outside of that, he’s treating me like a girlfriend.”

Victim 4 claims that the abuse began at the age of fourteen and occurred in the athletic building at Penn State, Toftrees Golf Resort and Hotels, and trips to Florida and Texas for football games. Sandusky wrote letters to Victim 4. One states: “I know that I have made my share of mistakes…My wish is that you care and have love in your heart. Love never ends.”

The star linebacker for Penn State, Arrington, knew Victim 4 well and originally denied the allegations against Sandusky. However, after hearing the details of the trial Arrington wrote an apology in the Washington Post stating, “I hate everything that has happened, and now I must admit I feel even worse, knowing what allegedly was happening so close to me, and that I was unaware…All I can do is hope that Victim 4 finds this entry and can see that I’m offering my sincerest apologies. I am so sorry this happened.”

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The jury selection began 5 June 2012 for the trial of ex-assistant football coach at Pennsylvania State University, Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky, age 68, is charged with fifty-two counts of sexual abuse of ten boys over a fifteen year period. Sandusky has admitted to showering with some of the young boys but has denied allegations of sexual abuse.

Sandusky was arrested in November of 2010, which threw the Penn State community into chaos. Riots began after Sandusky, Head Coach Paterno, and president of the university, Graham Spanier, were fired. Paterno and Spanier were both fired due to their attempts to try cover up the allegations. Riots broke out in protest of the firing of the head coach, as Penn State has a history of dedicated and proud fans.

Mike McQueary, another Penn State assistant coach who is currently on leave from the team, claims that he saw Sandusky naked in a team shower with a young boy in 2002. McQueary reportedly told head coach Paterno and athletic direct Tim Curley but no one told the police. Paterno died of lung cancer in January 2012, but Curley has since been charged with perjury and failing to report a crime along with senior vice president of finance and business at Penn State Gary Schultz.

The judge has denied appeals by the defense to delay the trial but he also required that the trial remain in the Penn State area, making it difficult to find jurors who are not connected to the Penn State football team or to Sandusky’s charity, Second Mile. One middle-aged woman who has been selected as a juror was a season ticket holder to the Penn State football team; some wonder how this will color her perceptions of the case.

The judge has also declared that Twitter and email reporting from the courtroom will not be allowed. Additionally, the judge has rejected allowing the ten boys to use pseudonyms meaning that they must use their real names at trial. One lawyer for one of the victims claimed, “it’s almost as if [the victim is] being branded with a scarlet letter.” However the judge claimed, “secrecy is thought to be inconsistent with the openness required to assure the public that the law is being administered fairly and applied faithfully.”

Since Sandusky’s arrest in November even more victims have come forward. Many of these victims met Sandusky through his Second Mile Foundation – created in 1977 – a charity for at-risk children.

According to a recently released report, in 1998 a psychologist, Alycia Chambers, told police that Sandusky was likely a pedophile. Chambers was involved in the investigation of a case in 1998 when a mother alleged that Sandusky had showered with her son. No arrests were made at the time although the mother did confront Sandusky who reportedly stated, “I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”

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