Protecting Our Children

October 8, 2026

The Protecting Our Children (POC) program is a three-part classroom curriculum developed and taught by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis for middle school-aged youth, part of the Catholic Charities Indianapolis Anti-Trafficking Awareness ministry offered through Catholic Charities – Social Concerns.

Medical and psychological studies continue to show that the increase of online interaction through social media and gaming apps not only impacts the development of the brain, but can cause long-term emotional, mental, and societal issues, including an inability to form and sustain relationships, depression, anxiety, and addiction.

Protecting Our Children empowers youth and their caregivers to recognize grooming patterns and how to keep themselves safe while online or in face-to-face interactions. More importantly, the program is designed to help youth identify the difference between authentic and toxic love, and that they were created in Love, by Love, for Love, by a God of Love.

Challenge or Need

The Social Concerns Anti-Trafficking Awareness ministry was developed approximately six years ago. It focuses on providing human trafficking awareness resources and training to school staff, parents, and the general public, with a concentration on social media, as it continues to be one of the top ways our youth are groomed for sexual exploitation, sex trafficking, and/or sextortion. As the ministry continued to grow due to increased public demand to understand ways to keep our youth safe online, schoolteachers and parents emphasized that education for adults alone was insufficient, and that our youth also needed to understand the impact online interactions had on their mental, emotional, and physical well-being.

The POC program was developed by Catholic Charities – Social Concerns as a three-part classroom curriculum, primarily for middle school students, to help them understand and identify online grooming tactics, the difference between truth and illusion, and break down the myths around sexual exploitation, sextortion, sex and labor trafficking, and the real impact of pornography. But we saw that just providing the youth with definitions and the facts was not enough. So many of our middle school youth shared that they did not understand their value and worth and, more importantly, that they were worthy to be loved authentically as Christ loves. Protecting Our Children was designed to tackle all of these issues and empower our youth to make good choices, with an understanding that our mistakes don’t define who we are; we are defined by Christ’s love for us all. The POC program is a ministry of our Catholic Charities Parish Social Ministry.

Why It’s Innovative

What makes the POC program innovative is that it tackles the deep-seated truth that at the core of who we are is a desire to be loved. To be validated. To be told that we matter. That God wanted us to be. And unfortunately, we are seeing growing societal philosophies that do not support this truth and that negatively impact individuals, families, and children, as we see increases in depression, anxiety, loneliness, poverty, and addiction.

It is not enough to just provide definitions and facts around the issue of sexual exploitation, sextortion, or human trafficking through online interactions, primarily through social media and gaming apps. Our youth crave the truth. This is not just a youth issue; this is a societal issue.

There are many excellent programs with curriculum geared toward teaching our youth how to protect themselves while online. Still, at the time of our research, we did not see any programs that addressed the truth that at the core of our online interactions is the desire to be loved. Loved could be defined as a youth connecting with someone online who makes them feel beautiful, handsome, smart, a gaming pro, listened to, heard, and understood. People who are looking to exploit our children for sexual purposes know this and understand how to look for these vulnerabilities in our youth with the end goal of exploitation. They also know the easiest way to connect and interact with youth is through social media and gaming apps.

Program Impact

The Protecting Our Children program consists of three separate lessons taught during regular classroom time by a staff member of Catholic Charities – Social Concerns. Also included in the program is a “parent night” where adults can attend a one-hour presentation on online safety, grooming tactics, parental controls, and the impact of social media and gaming apps on the social, emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being of our ourselves and our children.

Through interactive activities, games, donuts, stories, and critical thinking, Protecting Our Children empowers youth to understand their true value and not accept the counterfeit. To have open discussions about sexuality, our need to be loved, what authentic and counterfeit love looks like, and legitimate ways they can seek help when they are struggling through life. They also take away items from the program that they can keep in their locker, backpack, or wallet to help them remember what we covered in the three different classes.

Since its inception four years ago, Protecting Our Children has been welcomed into 47 of our Catholic middle schools, with a total of 2,292 youth participating in the program. Approximately 1,300 parents have attended a parent night, and 1,636 Catholic school teachers attended a one-hour training on human trafficking and social media awareness.

At the end of every classroom session, the youth are asked to fill out an index card letting us know one thing that stood out to them during that lesson or ask a question they may have that wasn’t addressed or they were embarrassed to ask in front of their peers. Below are some of their responses.

Lessons Learned

The running comment in Catholic Charities agencies around the nation is: “If you have seen one Catholic Charities agency, you have seen one Catholic Charities agency.”

All of our agencies continue to do incredible work, ministering to and accompanying those who are in need. Though each person we encounter has different needs, whether they be housing, material needs, food, mental health services, senior services, immigration, and/or pregnancy assistance, at the core we are all neighbors in need of validation and love.

No matter a person’s social or economic background, it is impossible to overlook the impact online platforms, social media, and now AI have had on the ongoing development of our society, and with the increased sophistication with which this is being implemented. With the fast-paced evolution of social media and gaming apps, it can feel overwhelming for adults, youth, schools, parishes, and agencies to stay ahead of the increased dangers of online scams, grooming and exploitation. Even if a Catholic Charities agency does not have a parish social ministry department or the capacity to create a program such as Protecting our Children, Catholic Charities agencies can use their webpages and social media platforms to help individuals understand the dangers lurking on the internet, tangible ways to keep ourselves safe online from scams and grooming, and, more importantly, how the principals of Catholic Social Doctrine are at the forefront of combatting the assault on human dignity. The issue of sexual exploitation, sextortion, and human trafficking is not going away. Still, all of us have the capacity to educate and empower our communities on this issue with the end goal of building the common good of society.

“If we focus only on contingencies, we risk letting the succession of emergencies dictate the direction of our path.” ~ Pope Leo XIV – Magnifica Humanitas no.6

Please note: At the time of this submission, the Protecting Our Children program was chosen as the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, United Catholic Appeal, featured ministry of Catholic Charities. A video is being edited highlighting the program and the importance of Archdiocesan support.

You can also find our resources at archindy.org/anti-trafficking-ministry.