Safety Procedures For Children’s Ministry Leaders
Author: Jessica Jones-Madrid, BA, MDiv
Safety Procedures For Children’s Ministry Leaders
Overseeing children’s ministry is a great blessing and an immense responsibility. The goal of all children’s ministry programs should be to ensure a safe environment where parents are confident that their children are cared for by trusted volunteers while learning about God’s love through Scripture. An essential aspect of children’s ministry is ensuring that children and volunteers are protected through clear guidelines and training procedures. All children’s ministry leaders must ensure they are staffed by vetted and trustworthy volunteers who understand their roles and how to safely interact with children. Having these safety procedures in place protects children and the volunteers that oversee them.
This article will give practical procedures you can enact in your ministries, regardless of size or budget. Child safety procedures are not only needed in large churches with hundreds of volunteers. Churches of all sizes should have confidence that their volunteers are trained, safe, and trustworthy. The key to a safe children’s ministry environment is having trustworthy, vetted volunteers trained to follow clear and defined child protection procedures. These guidelines can have different names, but this article will refer to them as a Child Protection Policy (CPP).
Vetting Volunteers
As most church leaders know, finding trustworthy, committed, and eager volunteers for your ministries is often difficult. Many leaders, understandably, rush to add new volunteers at the first mention of interest. However, having a clear set of guidelines and procedures is essential when processing a new volunteer for children’s ministry. Volunteers should always fill out an application form with their basic information, history of volunteering, commitment to a code of conduct, and adherence to a statement of faith. One major area that all ministry leaders must address is assurance that the potential volunteer has no history of predatory behavior or sexually based convictions. Having confidence that your new volunteer is a safe adult is of the utmost importance and one effective way to ensure this is through a background check. However, churches may be unable to use this tool for many reasons, either due to budgetary or regional restraints. A good second option is to ask new volunteers to provide two-character references. The ministry leader should contact these references and ask specific questions such as “Have you ever seen “volunteers name” interact with children? What was your impression of these interactions?” “To your understanding, has “volunteers name” ever been involved in a legal or alleged situation of sexually inappropriate behavior?” These questions must be answered by the character reference for a potential volunteer to be approved. Ministers should include all these aspects in the vetting process of new volunteers. Once a volunteer is vetted, they can be trained.
Child Protection Policy
Having a Child Protection Policy makes training new volunteers straightforward and efficient. A CPP is a document that outlines a church’s commitment to the safety and well-being of the children in its care. The goal of a CPP is to provide clear guidelines on how to interact with children, prevent abuse, respond to any allegations, and protect children. The CPP can include supervision requirements, appropriate disciplinary procedures, and reporting processes designed to safeguard children. This document should be written, or at least read and approved, by a lawyer. Here are some examples of what might be included in a church CPP:
All children’s ministry classes must be supervised by two approved volunteers at all times.
This might be included in your policy to ensure accountability and protect children and volunteers. Having multiple adults present minimizes the risk of misunderstandings or accusations, safeguarding everyone involved.
Children under a certain age should be accompanied by an adult volunteer to the bathroom.
Adult volunteers should be tasked with roles like bathroom breaks or diaper changes. This should be clearly outlined so youth or minor volunteers are not tasked with these jobs. This helps to prevent a youth volunteer from being put in a situation they are not equipped to handle.
Volunteers shall not spank or physically discipline children. All other touching and/or hugging should be done in the presence of another adult in an open classroom. Volunteers should inform the ministry leader to contact the child’s parents if there is a disciplinary issue with a child.
Discipline can be a touchy subject, and volunteers should be careful not to discipline children like they are their own. Volunteers should use pre-approved methods of discipline, such as verbal correction, redirection, or a brief timeout in a supervised setting. These methods should be discussed beforehand, and the parent(s) should be notified during or after the incident.
These are just a few examples of the guidelines included in a Child Protection Policy. These procedures should be read and discussed with new volunteers before they can interact with children in your ministry. A final important aspect of implementing a CPP is to allow volunteers at least one training session, either with the ministry leader or shadowing an approved volunteer. This enables the new volunteer to see the policy in action and follow up with any questions and concerns. Having a document like this provides safety for volunteers as they navigate typical interactions with children and assures parents that the ministry is protecting their children. After implementing your CPP, you may see the need to adjust, edit, or add guidelines. This should always be done with approval from leadership and clearly discussed with all volunteers.
CPP Contextualization
There will always be circumstances specific to your church that must be considered when creating training procedures. These include local laws about mandatory reporting or background checks. Your CPP can include awareness of cultural norms of discipline, language barriers between volunteers and children, and known risk factors in your community. These situations will be specific to your church context and should be researched and acknowledged when creating a child protection procedure for your church. Working alongside a local lawyer to create a CPP can help to incorporate your specific context into a document that serves your church and adheres to local laws.
The safety of children should always be the top priority in children’s ministry. By establishing thorough vetting processes for volunteers, implementing and regularly updating a comprehensive Child Protection Policy, and providing clear training and guidelines, ministry leaders can create an environment where children are protected, volunteers feel supported, and parents have confidence in the care provided. These procedures prevent harm and reflect a leader’s commitment to honoring God’s love for His children by creating a safe environment where they can grow and be nurtured spiritually. Ultimately, safeguarding children in ministry is a serious responsibility and an edifying expression of the church’s mission.
About the author: Jessica Jones-Madrid, has served as the director for children's and youth ministries at Bayview Church in Guam for five years. She has a B.A. in Christian Ministry and a Masters of Divinity from Regent University where her concentration was in Christian Theology.