February 12, 2021, 8:38 AM

Anne Kessler to Joanna Rudenborg

Cc: Cherin Marie, Eve Ahrens, [Advocate A], Brenda Dumper, Stewart Ruch

Hi Joanna,

It was a pleasure to meet you as well.  I consider it an honor to be able to assist the team in any way that will bring improvements, clairity, healing, and the protection of our most vulnerable across our Diocese.

I am growing more and more concerned about GRACE.  I am also so conflicted because I too have heard wonderful things about them and their programs.  It is even more troubling that Amy Stier is the person that I was told would be contacting me. I believe she would have received that instruction on Monday or Tuesday of this week and as of this morning I have heard nothing. I am still very open to hearing them out, but I feel the need to continue with my search without them.  I know there are other very capable firms out there and I received some solid leads yesterday from my contact at Wheaton College.  The college director gave me 3 potential leads that I will be following up with today.  She also had very positive feedback on Aequitask (https://aequitask.com/what/) and Bruce Melton. She said that the sexual misconduct cases he worked on with the college were exceptional and he was "highly regarded" by everyone at the college. 

With all that said, I will attempt to reach out to Amy Stier using the contact information you've provided.

I have attached the three PDF's that came with the "Reducing the Risk" program though CL&T. I also included an attachment that summarizes the 9 videos that came with the program. I also purchased their "Essential Guide to Youth Ministry Safety" which I have also attached. This is a 60+ page guide that I hope to review over the weekend.

In closing, I want to offer a few observations I've made as I continue to gain knowledge through this process.  I am getting the distinct impression that we are looking at two different types of "Investigation" from an independent/3rd party firm.  First, you have an "Independent Investigation" that is usually conducted by attorney's and/or former attorney's whose goal is to get to the guilt and/or innocents from a specific event or events.  I believe that GRACE indicated to you that this might be difficult to conduct at this time given the open and pending criminal proceeding(s). Then you have the "Organizational Assessment" which focuses on helping organizations/churches assess the effectiveness of their current programs/policy/procedures, or lack thereof.  This assessment gets to the bottom of what steps were done well, what steps were not done well, how to proceed forward, and what can be done to improve the process going forward. Obviously there would be a natural crossover and blending of the two. As I am interviewing the various firms, that is the main question I am asking, "which of these are the most appropriate step for our Diocese to take."  I realize the answer is most likely "both" but I am getting the feeling that one might need to take precedence over the other.

As I gain more knowledge and specific information I will certainly pass it along to the team.

Let me know if any immediate questions come or any other thoughts you might have.

Thanks,

Anne