CO-AUTHORS

Co-Authors / publishers

Sister Kieran Sawyer co-authored the Learning about L.I.F.E. Program with her friend and colleague Kathie Amidei during the 2004-2005 school year.  Kathie was at that time the Director of Child Ministry for the Archdiocese of Millwauee; Sister Kieran was the director of the TYME OUT Youth Center, a youth retreat center which serves the youth of the archdiocese.  Kathie was asked by then Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan to find catechetical material to fulfill "the mandate", the USCCB Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, which mandated, among other things, that all children were to receive annual instruction in ways to avoid sexual abuse.  Kathie and Sister Kieran teamed up to produce the book Learning about L.I.F.E.: a Family-based Program on Relationships and Abuse Prevention, which was published in 2006 by Ave Maria Press with an imprimatur from Archbishop Dolan. 

In 2008, the US Bishops promulgated Catechetical Formation in Chaste Living, a document requiring that all children be given chastity education from kindergarten through high school.  In response to this "second mandate", the authors revised and expanded the L.I.F.E. Program to better incorporate the concepts in the new document.   The revised program was published online in 2010, under the title L.I.F.E. Plus.  The online publisher, Proud to Protect, is a teacher-education program that serves public and private school teachers.  It also provides online safe environment training for adults in Catholic parishes.  L.I.F.E. Plus has since been expanded to include Spanish and English translations and three seprate formats.

Dr. Kathie Amidei

Pastoral Associate for Lifelong Faith Formation at St. Anthony Parish in Pewaukee, WI. Formerly the Associate Director of Child Ministry and Catechetics for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, she has many years of experience in family-based religious education programs.  Kathie, who is a wife, mother, and grandmother, recently completed doctoral studies at Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee.  Her dissertation focused on the effectiveness of family-based catechesis.

Sister Kieran Sawyer, SSND

Nationally acclaimed author and lecturer on youth ministry and character formation. She is the Founder and Director Emeritus of the TYME OUT Youth Center in Stone Bank, WI. Her books include Sex and the Teenager: Choices and Decisions (Ave Maria Press, 2008), a teachers' manual and student text on adolescent relationships and sexuality.  She is a member of the School Sisters of Notre Dame Central Pacific Province.