• Social Media Best Practices
  • Family Guide for Using Media
  • Your Family in Cyberspace
  • Communications Directory
  • Programming Protocol
  • Pastoral Plan
  • Media Bias
  • Media Seminars
  • Renewing the Mind of the Media
  • Introduction
  • Digital Television
  • Indecency
  • E-Rate
  • Copyrights
  • Low Power FM
  • Media Ownership
  • Media Violence
  • Parental Notification
  • Fairness Doctrine
  • Current
  • Archived

Michigan Woman Named Associate Director For Child, Youth Protection Office

WASHINGTON—Mary Jane Doerr, of Kalamazoo, Michigan, has been named associate director of the U.S. Bishops' Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection (SCYP).

She assumes the new job June 30, and succeeds Sheila Kelly, who is retiring from the position. In her new office, Ms. Doerr will work with Executive Director Teresa Kettelkamp in supporting the efforts of the Bishops' Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People and the National Review Board.

The Secretariat helps dioceses and eparchies (eastern Rite Churches) implement safe environment programs to ensure safety of children involved in church and religious activities. The SCYP also oversees the audit process to ascertain diocesan compliance with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, the plan adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2002, to deal with child sexual abuse by clerics.

Ms. Doerr is director of the Diocese of Kalamazoo Safe Environment Office, where she oversees implementation of the Charter. In that position she has assisted victims of sexual abuse, developed and promulgated policies and procedures for safe environment and victim assistance programs and has had an integral part in responding to the safe environment audits by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. She was named director of the Kalamazoo office in 2006. From 2003-2006, she was coordinator of the diocese's safe environment program.

Prior to work in the diocesan safe environment program, Ms. Doerr served in the diocese's stewardship and fundraising offices. She also worked for 20 years in education, including stints as an elementary school principal, instructor at Davenport College-Kalamazoo and co-director of the college's children's center, and as an elementary school teacher. She also was an instructor for the United Association of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Instruction Training Program and a copywriter for the J.S. Paluch Company, writing on stewardship.

Ms. Kettelkamp welcomed Ms. Doerr.

"Mary Jane brings valuable experience to the position," she said. "In her new position Mary Jane will work closely with dioceses so her work in the Kalamazoo Diocese is of paramount importance. Additionally, her history assisting victims and educating children give her a depth of understanding that will enhance all she does."