BALTIMORE — Dozens of survivors of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including several who grew up in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, are splitting from a national support network to form a coalition that prioritizes access to mental health resources.

“The bottom line is that we want to heal the wounded and protect the vulnerable,” said Teresa Lancaster, a Maryland survivor advocate and attorney whose story became part of “The Keepers” series on Netflix.

Lancaster is one of 27 local leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, who resigned Monday to serve the new Abuse Survivors Coalition, or ASC. According to a timeline published by ASC, the mass resignation came after 18 months of frustration with the national network’s board of directors and failed appeals to change its course.

“The final and most painful blow” cited by ASC leaders was the rebranding of SNAP’s website last year, which replaced a listing of local groups and contact information for survivor advocates with a “Find Support” form that asks users how they would like to get involved. The grassroots coalition’s website lists phone numbers and email links for advocates in 16 states and Washington, D.C., as well as information on seven support groups that meet one to four times per month.

“When survivors are calling for help, they don’t want to fill out a form,” Lancaster said, adding ASC’s leaders are already “willing and ready” to work.

SNAP Executive Director Angela Walker told The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday that “change is hard” and not everyone has been supportive of seeing SNAP “professionalized or changed.” She said this week’s resignations were preceded by a new set of norms for the network, including guidelines for respectful communication, survivor policy and transparency in governance.

Walker said earlier this week that as the world’s oldest and largest survivors community, SNAP is committed to its core values of protection, healing, prevention and fighting for justice. She said all of the network’s members “are deeply valued and remain at the heart of our work.”

“Today, some volunteers chose to resign from SNAP,” Walker wrote. “We wish them all the best in their future endeavors to support survivors.”

According to a list of grievances compiled by David Lorenz, SNAP’s former Maryland director, tensions began in 2024 after SNAP’s annual conference. The event reportedly lacked “many of the standard protocols,” including survivor support sessions and quiet places to retreat, and advocates said their concerns about harassment and helplines going unanswered were ignored.

A change in culture was also criticized when a meet-and-greet that is typically an ice cream social was instead held in a bar — “an absolute no-no” given many survivors’ struggles with substance abuse, Lorenz said.

Lorenz and a growing number of leaders, including Lancaster, soon formed a SNAP Reform Caucus that voiced communication and transparency concerns with the board. According to the ASC timeline, two meetings with the board’s president were scheduled and canceled, an episode that Lorenz said “set the tone for subsequent frustrations.”

About a year and a half after the controversial conference, Lorenz, Lancaster and 25 other leaders resigned from SNAP. According to a news release, the group represented approximately one-third of the network’s leaders and, combined, represented more than 350 years of experience advocating for survivors.

Lancaster said in a phone interview that she joined SNAP in 1999 while she was struggling in law school. She said the sense of community SNAP gave her helped push her through to her degree and, later, a path to help other survivors in court.

“It’s very hard for me and all the other leaders to leave because we’ve put our hearts and souls into it,” Lancaster said.

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