Becoming a Safe Church for Kids
Children played a prominent role in the ministry of Jesus, with the Lord going so far as to contend that our treatment of children speaks volumes about our attitude toward God (Mark 9:36-37). For centuries Christian churches have not only shared the gospel with children, but have advocated for their education, their well-being, and their value in God’s eyes.
Nevertheless, children have suffered abuse and neglect in Christian homes, churches, and youth ministries. Because of the great spiritual harm child abuse causes, churches are creating policies and adopting practices that keep kids safe.
This series of articles, when complete, will describe ten best practices to becoming a safe church for
kids:
- Form a Child Safety Committee
- Create Urgency through Education about Abuse
- Know Your Volunteers through Screening
- Assess Your Physical Space for Safety
- Create Guidelines for Interactions with Children
- Train Adults to Recognize and Respond to Abuse
- Support Abuse Survivors
- Create Guidelines for Responding to Abuse
- Empower Youth
- Review and Maintain Your Child Protection Program
Step One: Form a Child Safety Committee
The work of ensuring children are safe in religious settings is not something that can fall on one person’s shoulders ...
Step Two: Create Urgency
People in the congregation must first understand the statistics and results of child abuse to feel compelled to do something ...
Step Three: Know Your Volunteers
The church must surround the children in its care with people who are safe and loving. Why, then, do so ...
Sample Site Assessment Checklist
This checklist is not exhaustive. It is meant to be a starting point and should be adapted to meet the ...
Step Four: Assess Your Space
Children need a safe environment in which they can learn God’s Word. Careful facility design is an important step to ...
Sample Standards for Interactions with Minors and/or Vulnerable Adults
(Taken from virtusonline.org) Examples of appropriate contact with minors for Church programs include, but are not limited to: Verbal praise ...
Step Five: Implement Guidelines for Youth Leaders
Boundaries are important and keep people safe. The fence around a power plant is meant to keep people a safe ...
Step Six: Train adults to recognize and respond to abuse
Training the adults in the church is a vital step to keeping children safe. At a minimum every person who ...
Step Seven: Support abuse survivors
More than one out of four people have experienced or are currently experiencing abuse, yet over half of all Protestant ...
Step Eight: Create guidelines for responding to abuse
Learning that a child has been abused while in the church’s care is a stressful situation, making good decisions more ...
Step Ten: Review and maintain your child protection program
A program is only effective when it is followed and evaluated. Once you have child abuse response and prevention protocols ...
Step Nine: Educate children about personal safety
No child abuse prevention plan is complete without a plan to reach out to the youth of the church with ...
