Starting a Child Safety Program

A Child Safety Program has three components:

Procedures & Policies -- Do you have visual access to every room in your church? Is an adult allowed to have an ongoing counseling relationship with a teen of the opposite sex? Do the adult and teen counsel alone? (For a rating of your present policies see How Safe Is Your Church for Children?)
Screening -- Can an individual attend your church and after one month begin working in the nursery? Can a convicted felon start a home group Bible study with the teens? Does your new youth group pastor have a history at previous churches of sexual involvement with teens?
Education -- How do I know if the leader of the Boys Brigade is using illegal drugs? What are the signs of child abuse? Who do I talk to if I suspect something inappropriate is going on?

Expect resistance as you develop your program. Why?

People resist change, particularly in the church.

The thought of "my child" NOT being safe in church is a scary concept that our minds oppose. People move into denial that anything could happen in "our church."
People over spiritualize: "The church should be the one place where we trust one another." "Even if he was a child abuser, aren't we called as Christians to forgive?" "Shouldn't we just pray more and ask God to protect us?"

Here are ten recommendations for starting a Child Safety Program:

Get your church leadership on board with the idea. Completely on board.
Select a Child Safety Committee that represents key leaders and influencers in the church body. [The success of your program rests on people understanding the need for the program and be willing to use the program. Having key leaders and influencers as part of the process will help others accept the changes that you will implement.]
Educate the Child Safety Committee on the problem. Use resources like (some of these may no longer be available):
- The Church and Child Abuse (Pastor's Resource Kit) -- order from Hope for the Family Ministries, P.O. Box 65295, Virginia Beach, VA 23467, 804-474-1323.
- Reducing the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse in Your Church by Church Law & Tax Report -- order from Christian Ministry Resources, PO Box 2301, Matthews, NC 28106, 800-222-1840.
- Local churches that have had an incident of child abuse in their church.
- Your insurance company. -- Some insurance companies have excellent FREE resources for you to use.
- Christian magazine articles on sexual abuse in the church.
- Newspaper articles concerning multimillion dollars law suits placed against churches for sexual child abuse.
- The Bible - Look particularly at verses concerning false prophets in the church (e.g. 2 Peter 2:1-2,13-14,18-19), the need to be wise as serpents yet innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16), verses regarding the need to hold people accountable (Galatians 6:1-3), and the commands to guard the children among us (Matthew 18:5-6,10-20; Acts 20:28-30).
Have the committee begin to develop policies, screening requirements, and educational tools.
Develop a group of committed people who will pray for the committee as they work.
Give updates to your church leaders and the leaders of your key children's ministries (assuming they are not part of the Child Safety Committee). Invite them to a Child Safety Committee meeting to provide input.
Test your policies, screening requirements, and educational tools before you finalize them. [We used members of the committee first, then selected leaders of children's ministries. We also received input from key influencers in our church. This testing caused us to completely scrap a computer program that we were planning to use for screening. We also received invaluable input for nursery procedures.]
Submit your program to the church leadership and regain their complete support. [We found that we had to do some re-education at this point.]
Present your final conclusions to the congregation with the church leaders and all committee members standing behind you (both physically and figuratively). Allow opportunity for questions.
Keep working your program. It is easy to become lax. [Children need our diligence in protecting them. Furthermore, if you must defend yourself in court, you will need to prove that you were consistent in following procedures.]

Starting a Child Safety Program

See also FAQ: How do we implement a Child Safety Program in our church? Back to our Child Safety Program Page.

See also FAQ: How do we implement a Child Safety Program in our church?
Back to our Child Safety Program Page.