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Talk to me about Church child safety policies
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I’d love to hear what policies your church (or other similar institution) has to keep children safe in nursery and Sunday school. A little info on me: I go to a relatively small church with a lot of little kids. I organize the nursery and teach the 2-6yos. The leadership is interested in child safety policies but they have been for a while and nothing has happened. I think I need to push for us to actually implement some things but I (emotionally, for my own sake) need some inspiration and incentive. We rent building space and only have one large fellowship room. For nursery we have gates we use to block off part but for the little kids’ class they can basically run away if they really want to and they scatter at the end of class. Kids don’t get dropped off by parents and they don’t get returned to parents. The church is great about watching other people’s kids, but maybe too great. If a child is brought to nursery by another adult, who should pick them up? The current system, frankly, is no one ever picks kids up. They sort of just assume their kids will come back to the sanctuary at the end of service. I’d also love to hear if there are any policies (hall monitors?) about kids roaming during service. Because we have that problem too. They go to the bathroom and dawdle a lot and sometimes disturb the nursery.
TIA
Ours has a couple in place.
1. Children under age 8 must be picked up by a parent or older sibling (if that has been approved by the parents) at the end of class. They will not be released to find a parent.
2. Restroom visits for 8 and up can be with a buddy from their class, for those under 8 a floating adult takes them and waits by the bathroom sink for them, OR the whole class goes once together so it is done at one time.
3. If a kid is wandering the hall without an adult they get taken to class or to their parent. (This would be ages 8 and up, so generally they get one chance to head back to class and then it’s to a parent.)
4. For nursery kids or any age who consistently escape/run out of class they are required to have one parent attend class with them each week.
Good luck!
We recently switched from a larger church to a smaller church but both have similar policies.
At the larger church they implemented KidCheck, the smaller one just did. It is really nice. When you entered the church you go to a computer and print off a label for each child and a single guardian label. The label has the child’s name and ID number that changes at random each week for each family. When picking up from class the teacher matches the child’s label to the guardian label. We also did not allow siblings under the age of 12 to pick up siblings. This was good because it gave constant attendance through the computer system that auto updates so if there was an emergency and had to evacuate there would be no question as to which child was in class and it can be accessed by leadership from different applications. We also did in-class attendance as well. Prior to KidCheck system each child was given a label with a pre printed random number on it, we would hand write their name on the label and the guardian was given a matching smaller sticker with the same number. In this case with 3 kids I had 3 numbers since each label had its own number. With KidCheck all my kids have the same number. When picking up I had to show the sticker with the matching number for my child.
We do have security during service as well. They have small ear walkie talkies to keep in touch. They check in with each class, keep a look out for kids that might be out of class and such. Just make sure everything was going smoothly or if anyone needed help with anything or anything suspicious. They also lock all the secondary doors during service so you can exit but not enter; but always leave the main entrance unlocked for entrance.
Bathroom policies was that the teacher took the kids to the bathroom and/or changed diapers, the helper did not. All teachers have background checks and such, but the helpers are usually volunteers that rotate through. Once a child was in Kinder (and/or able to) they would do bathroom breaks as a group, so the entire class goes to the restroom and waits as they go one at a time.
I also attend a Bible Study that has about 80 kids and 120 ladies during the week. For that since we don’t have KidCheck instead as each mom brings their children they sign in each child on a class specific sign in sheet. Throughout the morning the leadership checks on each class and is walking the halls making sure everyone is where they need to be. We also lock the main doors so that you can exit but not enter. To pick up the kids the mom MUST come to the class and sign out their children. We do not allow siblings to pick up at all since this leads to chaos because mom’s talk and kids run around, LOL. We do have access to a gym space and encourage mom’s to take their kids into that space to let them play as the mom’s chat.
To prevent the “lag” of parents picking up their kids at our church and our Bible study it is announced at the end of every service something like “please pick up your children promptly as a courtesy to the the child care providers so they can prepare to go home” It takes repeating over and over and over again, but people will start to catch on.
At first I was kind of “put off” by how “formal” it has become but after talking to those in leadership I see how having standards really helps. It helps keep the kids safer and it is also really good because it makes the parents check in with their kids teachers. So they can connect even for the quick “how did it go” and then if the teachers have questions or concerns they can talk to the parents, and/or if the parents have concerns they can talk to the teachers. Going from helping at church when there were not standards just kids coming and going and now in a situation where there are more “rules” the rules really are nice. It creates another level of security for the kids and teachers and also allows more communication opportunities.
Oh and same as Tristen, if kids have a tendency to “run” a parent has to stay with them in class. It is for the child’s safety, they can’t be running around and the teachers can not constantly leave class as that is not safe for the kids in class. We call the parents in and try to find a solution, often requiring the parents help.
Thanks so much! This is very helpful. I’d like to be able to go in with a survey of what other churches do plus it is giving me ideas. I doubt we’d be buying and technology for this though,
I think it can be done with out technology, our Bible study does. Over the years we have become more “strict” about mom’s dropping off and picking up. When I started 8 years ago it was more relaxed, so it took time to adjust, but now that everyone knows, it is not a big deal and most get their kids pretty quickly
I honestly hate the formality of big check-ins…but I understand the safety issues. When I used to do children’s ministry, we’d sometimes do sign-in and sign-out by the same parent.
As a parent, I hardly ever use children’s ministry, but when I have, I was ok with my kids just be released to find me (or another adult just bringing them to me) until there were people around I didn’t trust. Unfortunately, that’s just a reality. 🙁 It’s hard to find a balance between maintaining the family atmosphere and working hard to keep our kids safe.
Extremely rigorous policies:
- No children (that is, under age 18) are allowed to go to the bathroom without an adult during services. If they are in a classroom setting, usually the teacher brings all children to the bathroom at the same time.
- Drop-off/pick-up by an adult (signed in/out)
- People involved in a youth ministry in any way must complete a child protection training and have a completed criminal background check
- Two adults per classroom at all times
- Doors must be locked at all times when there are children’s ministries going on inside the church (scouts, faith formation, etc.) People who are members of the church have the code to open up the outside door.
Our church is very strict about child protection. They run fire drills several times a year, and have outside auditors come in to make sure that child protection/background checks are up to date.
Thanks again, everyone. If others would like to contribute, I am happy to hear more. I am afraid there will be some flak if I push for this, which I feel I must. But it is good to hear others had that and people got used to it too.
“No children (that is, under age 18) are allowed to go to the bathroom without an adult during services. If they are in a classroom setting, usually the teacher brings all children to the bathroom at the same time.”
–We had a somewhat similar policy not long ago. Kids under 12 had to be accompanied by an adult. Everybody but me seems to have forgotten that policy exists 🙁 There was a lot of resistance to that initially. The it worked okay for a short time, then when one particularly difficult family moved away everyone seemed to forget it. One aspect that I hadn’t mentioned is that our church is about half African refugee families. They often have different ideas of parental involvement and expectations. And it can be harder to communicate what is expected. Many come with very little or no English.
It is hard to make changes. What could help is to get as many people on board as you can and lead by example. At the Bible study I attend the leadership ladies will actually say to ladies they are talking to something like “let’s go get the kids while we talk and we can continue in the gym while the kids play” Ladies with no chidren if talking to ladies with children might say “I will go with you to get the kids so we can continue our conversation” So it really starts at the top and does take time and consistance.
You have different challenges especially with language barriers and cultural differences, but having a designated place for kids to play and adults can chat has been a big help at our Bible study. Ladies like to chat but we had to find a way to not have kids all over the church as that is not safe and it is just crazy, the designated space of a gym has been great, but you could designate any space area that is available. Since all the kids are in one area, maybe all kids stay put and upon end of service pastor invites everyone to the kid area that way kids are in safe space and parents are with them.
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