I am very happy to finally be hanging up my hardhat. General contracting is not for me. With most of the details being finished up in the next few weeks I want/need to focus more efforts on the values/vision/ and overall logistics of our kids ministry. This week I am going to be going into our Be Attitudes which are the values that we need to live and breath each weekend.
Our Be Attitudes for Uptown are:
BE SAFE
BE COURTEOUS
BE ENGAGING
BE CONSISTENT
Today I want to talk about safety. When working with kids you can never be to safe. My perspective is safety has to be paramount in all we do. If Parents don’t feel their kid will be safe they will not bring them if kids do not feel safe they won’t stay. If kids don’t come or won’t stay nothing we do matters life change in our context will not happen.
I thought I would post what some of our safety procedures are and could feedback as to what you guys do or don’t do.
1. Check-in – We use Fellowship One. I researched all the church databases out there on the market a few years ago and Fellowship One was just getting started but were already BY FAR the most kid focused/ kid safe program out there. Each family each week gets a randomly generated alpha numeric code printed on a sticker that the parents have to match to the kiddo sticker. Very safe and very fast.
2. In the hall. No person is allowed in the wing were our kids classes take place without a Fellowship One name-tag. The only people that are allowed are approved volunteers, children of the appropriate age and parents.
3. All workers must fill out an application and have a background check performed.
4. We never change diapers or assist kids in the bathroom.
5. Kids are not allowed to leave their environment until a parent or guardian picks up their child by displaying their matching name-tag code.
PARENT RECIPT
CHILD NAMETAG
6. We do tours for adults wishing to see our children’s ministry environments AFTER all the kiddos are gone.
7. Every environment has a walkie talkie to page parents or to contact security.
Some people have not liked these changes. But I am committed more than ever to BE SAFE.
Your turn. What do you do or would suggest we do to keep our kiddos safe.
Sounds like you guys have a great system in place. You can’t be too careful, safety of kids is incredibly important and you don’t want to take any chances!
What would you suggest for a growing kids ministry that doesn’t yet have the numbers to justify the fancy database? We want to put some systems in place before we get that big.
Sam, thought you’d appreciate the letter Annaliese wrote to her little friend Caleb that moved away to Ohio…
I peeked at it before she put it in an envelope.
“Dear Caleb,
Pastor Sam and some men made Rock church so cool. They painted the walls. It is so cool. They put in a playground with tubes.
With love,
Annaliese”
(Written in purple crayon)
Sarah,
Thanks for taking the time to comment. I have been thinking tons about safety and it is more about a philosophy than a data base. We have used a ton of other measures before finding Fellowshipone. Fellowshiop One is based on typical weekend attendance and the price is prorated by your churches size so it may be cheaper than you think. That being said the biggest drawback of F1 is the price. When deciding on F1 we also came very close to going with church community builder. A very close pastor friend of mine has used them for years and raves about them. They are much cheaper than F1. http://www.churchcommunitybuilder.com/
As far as security goes it think having some form of parent to kid ID is great, also 1 entrance and exit to where your kiddos are is also super advantages. The more you control who goes in who goes out the safer your kiddos will be.
Hope that answered your question.
Hannah,
That is priceless, thanks for sharing you made my day. “pastor sam and some men…..” where do kids come up with that stuff. Love it.