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ABOUT UNITY

EDUCATION

Caring for the Safety of Our Children

Sacred Safety (risk management) includes the practices, procedures and policies that reduce the possibility of dangerous situations, injury or loss to our children and adults. Consistent, well-thought out guidelines for which staff and volunteers are trained and held accountable, in turn, reduces the church's liability.

Below you will find information on key components for creating sacred safety. These include: doing background screenings, finding resources, examples of policy and procedure handbooks and a sample press release.

Background Screening

At the Association of Unity Churches International, we strongly suggest and encourage individual Unity ministries to conduct background screening on all adults—either paid staff or volunteers—working with minors. See additional information on steps involving background screening.

For background checks: VolunteerSelect is a charitable initiative of ChoicePoint Inc. (ChoicePoint Inc.is affiliated with Secure Point.) It offers subsidized pricing to encourage social service organizations to protect their clients through the adoption of high-quality background screening programs.

For information on screening volunteers and reporting procedures for suspected abuse, read an excerpt from Chapter 16 of the Youth and Family Ministry Guide: For Directors, Ministers and Volunteers, #BA6010, $36.95. This invaluable resource is a must-have for all Unity churches with children/teens/families. Order the guide for the whole chapter plus information on job descriptions, training and administration.

Resources

Some sites that we highly recommend for information and training on sacred safety/risk management are:

Reducing the Risk: Keeping Your Ministry Safe From Child Sexual Abuse, 3rd Edition offers a resource kit to help your ministry become aware of the risks of child sexual abuse within the church; and to create the appropriate policies and procedures that will help reduce those risks through screening, training and prevention.

Safe Sanctuaries: Reducing the Risk of Child Abuse in the Church is another good resource to help your ministry develop awareness and protocol for protecting children in your ministries. This has been embraced by the United Methodist Churches.

Group's Church Volunteer Central is a Web site with the broader mission of equipping churches for volunteer effectiveness. This site offers articles, background checks, training modules, forms and access to a volunteer expert on the phone.

Church Mutual Insurance Company has a wide assortment of free safety resources including pamphlets and DVDs covering topics such a child sexual abuse, fire prevention, weather protection, playground checklists, using 15-passenger vans, release forms and more.

Child Welfare site provides information and resources on child abuse—overview, prevention, reporting requirements for each state and more.

Policy and Procedural Handbooks

Policy and procedural handbooks are a must for churches. Here are two examples.
Unity Centre of Practical Christianity, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, and Tampa Unity Church, Tampa, Florida.

Policy for reporting suspected child abuse courtesy of Unity of Louisville, Louisville, KY

Incident Report form from Unity of Louisville. This is also on the CD of Forms available in the Youth & Family Ministry Guide.

Volunteer Driving Policy and Agreement example from Unity in Lynnwood, Washington.

Policy outlining the actions to take when a know sex offender seeks to attend functions at the church from Unity Northwest Church, Des Plaines, Illinois.

Press Release

It is strongly encouraged that the church has a prepared release statement for the press. Here is an example taken from a current news article.

"The First Church of Christ believes that children are created by God as precious gifts. Unfortunately, we currently live in a world that does not always appreciate the value of God's precious children. Therefore, children must depend upon adults for safety and security. When the accusations were made, the volunteer accused was promptly released from his/her responsibilities and Tracy Watson, detective for the Boone County Sheriff's Department, was immediately notified. The Church leaders have cooperated fully with their investigation."

"At First Church, children are a valued part of our ministry and worship. This is the reason First Church provides a safe place for its children to be nurtured and hear the good news of God's love and protection. Therefore, First Church takes seriously our responsibilities in protecting our children and teaching them God's perfect love."