Child Sexual Abuse Committee Making Strides

Still feeling the effects of the William Sheehan abuse scandal, the town continues to make strides in detecting and noticing signs of child abuse.

A year after it’s formation, the Child Sexual Abuse Committee gave their first update to the selectmen this week, documenting the progress that has been made in a short period of time.

In the past year, the committee has offered several sessions and classing to train town employees and volunteers on how to find signs of abuse. According to the committee, all but 30 town employees have been trained with a goal to get every employee of the town trained.

In addition, any group that uses a town facility more than three times a year must have adults that are trained.

The effort is not only working in town but is getting the attention of other towns.

“It’s snowballing and it’s a great feeling. Foxborough is going to be a leader and other towns are reaching out to learn how to get involved in something like this,” committee member Lynda Walsh said.

In addition to town employees, many youth league coaches have attended the meetings including selectman David Feldman who had nothing but praise for the committee.

“I took the training as the coach but by the end I was happy to take the training as a parent. The training was invaluable as a parent because they are the ones bringing the kids to the practices and the games and they can see the warning signs,” Feldman said.

Selectman Jim DeVellis, who helped lead the initiative to create the committee, also commended the committee for their efforts.

“I was amazed at all the groups there that don’t have that protocol. The dialogue was phenomenal,” DeVellis said of one of the recent training sessions for coaches. “It’s head and shoulders over where we were a year ago.”

In an executive session prior to the meeting, the selectmen agreed to ask for a report from the town detailing a timeline of the Sheehan case starting in the 80s until now.