September 11, 2025
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As we transition to the season of renewal, I want to thank you all for your input and feedback regarding the many moving pieces impacting our Safe Environments work. Your collaboration is an integral part of ensuring the safety of children and vulnerable adults! This newsletter is filled with a lot of content, so please read it all with the care and love you all provide in your day-to-day ministry.
NEW INTAKE FORM
Safe Environments is pleased to announce our new Intake Form! This is a form that will now be used to report any incidents that will need the involvement of the Detroit Catholic Schools and the Safe Environments offices. Please take a moment to watch this short tutorial to familiarize yourself with the intake form.
**It is important to note that this form should ONLY be used for incidents that happen at the school or the parish. For mandated reporters reporting CPS matters that are going on at the home and are not an onsite school related incident please do not submit this information to us.
As a final note, it is also important to mention that you MUST report to CPS before submitting this form to the Archdiocese as we do not conduct internal investigations. If you are questioning whether to submit an incident to the Intake Form, please consult with your associate superintendent or email Safe Environments at protectchildren@aod.org.
BACKGROUND CHECK AUTOMATIONS
We are still working with VIRTUS to solve some technical issues regarding the automated background check authorization process. Please watch your inboxes for an update in the next few business days.
As a reminder, when a first-time registrant creates an account, they will be required to provide their date of birth, gender, race, and whether they have resided in the State of Michigan for the last seven years.
They will also be prompted to sign and authorize a Background Check to be conducted by your parish/school. Upon completion of their registration, you will be able to pull all their information from VIRTUS to conduct an ICHAT. The best part? This authorization form is a one-and-done agreement due to the fact our VIRTUS users will be agreeing to an annual (or every two years for our volunteers) background check by signing this form.
*UPDATE* MASS INACTIVATION
VIRTUS will conduct a mass deactivation at the end of September for anyone who hasn’t logged into their account since August 2020. We are conducting this mass deactivation because the recertification requirement is on a three-year basis and anyone who hasn’t logged in to their VIRTUS account in five years is well out of compliance. I would like to note that this deactivation does not permanently delete users, and it will be very easy to reactivate anyone at any time. Going forward, Safe Environments will conduct these batch deactivations annually for anyone who hasn’t logged in for at least 4 years.
**Please feel free to write about this in your parish bulletin to ensure that all your volunteers who would like to continue to be active in their ministry log into their account so as to not inactive them.
** REMINDER** ALL LOCAL VIRTUS ADMINS: MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR OCTOBER 15 AT 9:00 a.m.
Pat Neal, Director of the VIRTUS Program, is going to have an in-person and webinar presentation about all the changes happening in VIRTUS and how to best use them in your parish and school as a Local Administrator.
- Webinar | October 15 at 9:00 a.m.: This webinar is geared towards those in our parishes and schools who work with VIRTUS on a regular basis, and anyone is welcome to join! I will send a reminder email in mid-September and another in early October. If you are interested in joining, please register here. This session will be recorded and available in the “Files” section of our Teams channel. For those you interested in joining our Teams submit your request here.
- In-person | October 15 at 1:00 p.m.: Pat and I will join the Business Managers Quarterly Meeting to have an in-person presentation about the automation changes and some of the key features that are beneficial to our schools and parishes. After the presentation there will be time for a Q & A.
Finally, I want to share a number of resources with you. As part of our duty in Safe Environments, accessibility to key documentation is a priority. The list will grow longer as more newsletters go out. For now, I leave you with these:
