me thinks she has done her career a great deal of damage not that I care as she is 'in bed' with the wt.
I watch her and she reminds me a so many academics' I once had to deal with whose lives are from cloistered halls with never a day in reality.
Dr Applewhite and Child Abuse
by snare&racket 48 Replies latest jw friends
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Vidiot
Actually, given all we know, now, she seems like a good fit for the WTS. :smirk: -
NewYork44M
If this is the best the Wt can come up with as an expert witness to support their strategy they have BIG problems. Like some one said, I hope she got paid up front. -
StrongHaiku
The question I would have asked Dr. Applewhite, if given the opportunity would be, "...knowing what you now know about Jehovah's Witnesses, would you ever consider becoming one, and/or bringing your children/family into it, or even recommending it to others as "the truth"?"
I hope these hearings will be of a lot of benefits. And, I hope very strongly that there will be a number of people in that room that will never want to become a JW. Priceless...
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OrphanCrow
Applewhite tesified for the Watchtower in the Conti case.
Monica Applewhite, a clinical social worker and an expert on child sexual abuse, testified for defendants that Watchtower's policy against "disclosing private information . . . very closely mirror[ed]" the codes of ethics of the National Association of Social Workers and the American Counseling Association. Based on her review of the evidence, Applewhite opined that the Congregation never put Kendrick "into a position that required or allowed him to be alone with children, to be in supervision of children, [or] to spend time with children away from their families." Because the church's activities did not separate children from their parents, Appelwhite opined that its best means of protecting children was to educate parents about child sexual abuse, and it exceeded the standard of care for such education in the 1990's. According to Applewhite, the elders met the standard of care in Kendrick's case when they left it up to Evelyn and her daughter whether to tell the police about the abuse he admitted, and "they kept a special watch on him and paid attention to whether or not he had any inappropriate contact with children within the meetings at Kingdom Hall."
She says that she is a qualifed expert, but she offered no 'expert' sources to back up her opinions. There is something really wrong with her supposed credentials.
She isn't an experst per se...her only expertise is in showing up and saying stupid things about how the WTS is shiny clean in their handling of child sex abuse.
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StrongHaiku
I am still stunned by the irony that someone who is "worldly" (and catholic and a woman) was paid well by the GB to review/scrutinize their practices. If the R&F tried to do the same they would be on an express-elevator to a JC. -
snare&racket
As a JW in the 80's and 90's that a...
catholic
female
psyxhologist/social worker
......would represent GODS ORG ON EARTH in court and have access to all the elders/bethel letters and elders book etc, would be laughed out the kingdumb hall.
But it happened!
i have no idea where all the conspiratorial ideas that she is a secret JW or not qualified etc are coming from, but they are ridiculous. She works for a forensic investigator firm as an expert for hire, with a speciality in defence of child abuse management in organisations (in that she has chosen to represent largely defendants and specifically religious orgs), her life choices wouldn't be mine and I wonder how well she sleeps. The reality is bad enough without diluting this incident with baseless conspiracy nonsense. It sounds whacky and undermines what we say and do here,
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OrphanCrow
not qualified
Her qualifications are sorely lacking, according to the Royal Commission. She lied on the stand - she said she had only given testimony in one case and then after prompting, it turns out that she has given "expert" testimony many times for the WTS.
She is the "expert" who said that the WTS were blameless in the Conti case.
She 'knew' the elder books and such pretty good - she used the WTS as a source yet was unable to produce a single outside source to back up her opinion. No wonder the WTS likes her - she thinks her word comes from God and that is all that is necessary. Why did she not have any references to back her opinions up? Surely she at least could have offered something stats on the Catholic Church to back up her claims. She couldn't even come with the names of those 'outside' organizations she supposedly worked with.
Applewhite does not deserve the "expert' label that she is flying under. The Royal Commission has mentioned more than once that they would not be able to accept her testimony based on what she has given them.
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StrongHaiku
I think, in typical JW fashion, JW elders/representatives went in with the idea that the angels would provide just the right words for them to say like they were going door-to-door or something. They walked in with an indefensible position and, I imagine, confident that Jehovah would put just the right words in their mouths. Epic fail...
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blondie
A sexual abuse expert hired by the Jehovah's Witness Church told a royal commission the organisation failed to meet acceptable standards in its approach to child abuse allegations.
Under cross-examination, Monica Applewhite told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the Jehovah's Witness Church did not meet "best practice" in handling abuse claims.
Counsel assisting the commission Angus Stewart SC asked the church's expert witness whether structures based on biblical scriptures were in line with benchmark standards.
The church's policies for responding to child sexual abuse allegations were "deficient when measured against current best practice," he said.
Advertisement"Does it meet all current best practices? It probably doesn't," Dr Applewhite replied.
The commission has previously heard evidence that under church structures, victims must face their abuser before a committee of male elders without a support person present.
Commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan asked Dr Applewhite: "The girl or woman would have to confront ultimately three men in the presence of the abuser and without moral support. Now is that a good practice?"
"Absolutely not," Dr Applewhite replied.
She acknowledged in evidence that the Jehovah's Witness Church requirement for two witnesses to give testimony against an abuser was problematic in the case of child abuse in which the two witnesses were likely to be the victim and the offender.
"Because there is not another witness, her allegation is not accepted ... do you see that might have real difficulties for the survivor?," Justice McClellan asked.
"Absolutely," Dr Applewhite replied.
In her statement, tendered to the commission, the American consultant wrote that in her opinion the practices of the Jehovah's Witness Church were superior to those of other religious groups.
"The current messages to those who have experienced abuse and the guidelines that have been provided to elders in congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses are consistent with and, in some respects, better than the current practices of religious organisations throughout the world," she wrote.
Dr Applewhite's statement also praised Jehovah's Witness Church publications about child abuse.
"Jehovah's Witnesses excel in providing such educational materials to parents and family members, and the substance of their materials concerning child abuse is exceptionally clear and helpful," she wrote.
Justice McClellan said before the commission he believed the Jehovah's Witness Church structures for investigating sexual abuse claims were flawed.
"I don't know of any other religious organisation which ... has the processes with the flaws we have identified in the Jehovah's Witnesses," he said.
The commission expects to hear more evidence about how the processes have evolved when it resumes on August 3.
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