Greetings to my fellow Michigan ATSA members,
As board president, it occasionally falls to me to provide an update on the activities of your Michigan ATSA board. Board members continue to meet on a regular basis to plan and coordinate trainings and represent the Michigan ATSA members regarding policy changes in the state legislature.
Since I last wrote to you, Michigan ATSA facilitated the training with Geraldine Crisci to assist in understanding normative sexual behavior in children. Geraldine’s presentation received very positive reviews from those that attended.
We also had excellent representation of Michigan folds at the international ATSA conference in Atlanta, Georgia. We were able to coordinate a Michigan get-together one evening and counted 36 people representing Michigan at that dinner alone. The board uses the larger ATSA conference to assist in identifying useful speakers for our local conferences. We had some excellent ideas and will be determining the best choice for our fall conference.
We are sponsoring a spring conference with Bob McGrath. He is presenting on the Risk of Sexual Abuse of Children (ROSAC) tool which is a structured professional guide to help professionals assess the risk asexual abuser poses to a child and under what circumstances. This will occur on April 30th and May 1st, 2020. Seating is limited to 75 each day and registration for the ROSAC training is now live on the Mi-ATSA website. Since there is a great deal of interest in this training across the state, sign up early. The ROSAC can provide a common language for various disciplines when making challenging decisions about contact between a person convicted of a sexual offense and a specific child.
Michigan ATSA board members have been advocating within the state legislature for upcoming changes to the Sex Offender Registry law. Board members have met with legislative stakeholders and elected officials to advocate for making the sex offender registry risk-based so the public can be better informed on the estimated risk a registrant poses while not restricting lower-risk offenders from reintegrating into society and lowering their risk further. We would welcome involvement of MI-ATSA members that can connect us with their elected officials or other important stakeholders in this conversation. Please feel free to contact me via our Contact the Board page so that we can connect with your local representative or senator for this important work.
A new element that we would like to develop for the website is a Featured Member. At regular intervals, we will feature a MI-ATSA member and the work they are doing to develop our field. If you have ideas about who should be featured, please let us know.
For those that follow the ATSA listserv, you have likely heard the news that Kurt Bumby, previous president of ATSA and a significant contributor to our field, was arrested on a sexual offense charge. This shocking news highlights the care we should have when listening to victims when they report a person we would least suspect. It also highlights the need for self-care and support of each other in our profession. As more news is available in this area, we will be sure to keep the Michigan ATSA members up to date.
Your board members are always happy to listen to your input on any board members. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or concerns.
David J. Berghuis President, MI-ATSA