SAFER CHURCHES. THRIVING SURVIVORS.
The heart of our cause and how it gets done.
Our purpose is anchored in protecting the vulnerable and equipping the church to lead with responsibility, truth, and empathy. Learn more about our mission, methods, and movement below.
ABOUT
SHIELD & EDEN
Shield & Eden is a trauma-informed, faith-aligned consulting and educational resource dedicated to helping churches cultivate cultures of safety, accountability, and compassionate care. We bridge lived experience, evidence-based research, and theologically responsible teaching to equip faith communities with practical tools for preventing, recognizing, and responding to child sexual abuse. Through training, language development, resource creation, and guided support, we help churches move from assumptions of safety to practices that protect, honor, and heal — ensuring every individual, especially the most vulnerable, is seen, safeguarded, and supported.
About the founder
Before the organization was formed, there was a story — and a calling — that shaped its purpose.
Get to know the why behind it all.
Ashley Cook is a survivor, scholar, and advocate transforming how Black faith communities understand safety, accountability, and healing. She is a survivor of more than a decade of childhood sexual abuse by her adoptive father, a prominent pastor and community leader. Through her healing journey, she recognized that while testimony is powerful, storytelling alone could not produce the systemic change survivors deserve. She learned that lasting transformation requires trauma-informed models, evidence-based research, and theologically sound frameworks. This realization shifted her work from personal narrative to strategic, research-supported solutions.
A Christian woman who pursued seminary studies to deepen her theological foundation, Ashley now studies Human Development at Howard University, with plans to advance into the social sciences. Her academic pursuits reflect her commitment to bridging research, theology, and applied reform in faith-based contexts. As the Founder and Executive Director of Shield & Eden, Ashley equips churches, ministries, and community organizations to prevent sexual abuse and restore trust through evidence-based education, theological integrity, and survivor-informed practice. Her work centers on building church cultures where safety is practiced, not assumed.
She has trained more than 300 churches nationwide in sexual abuse prevention, safeguarding policy, and trauma-informed leadership. As the former Director of Partnerships at Darkness to Light, she co-developed the national Protecting Children During a Crisis training, which reached more than 11,000 parents, educators, and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her advocacy also supported the advancement of North Carolina’s Safe Child Act (SB 199) — landmark, unanimously passed legislation requiring sexual abuse prevention training for all school staff statewide.
Professionally, Ashley is pursuing a long-term goal of becoming a researcher dedicated to closing the scholarship gap surrounding sexual abuse prevention and healing within Black communities. Her vision is to merge empirical data, survivor testimony, and theological integrity to create sustainable models of safeguarding, survivor care, and institutional reform. She believes that healing and accountability are not competing values — they are sacred partners in the pursuit of justice.