Faith’s Law is named after prevention advocate and child sexual abuse survivor Faith Colson, who graduated from an Illinois high school in the early 2000s. Faith was sexually abused by a teacher at her high school. Years later, during the course of legal proceedings related to the abuse, Faith learned that several adults within her high school suspected that the teacher’s relationship with her was inappropriate but did not take appropriate action to report their concerns. As a result of her experiences, Faith pushed for change to state laws related to educator sexual misconduct in K-12 schools.
As of July 1, 2023, Public Act 102-0702 went into effect. The Act adds employment history reviews for school employees, substitute employees, and employees of contractors, as part of the hiring and vetting process, requires notices to be provided to parents/guardians and the applicable student when there’s an alleged act of sexual misconduct, and makes other changes to the process schools must follow when handling allegations of sexual misconduct.