1 of 5

"I'm Here for Johnny"

It's Johnny's second week in Sunday school. His mother brought him both times. Now a man the staff has never seen before is asking for Johnny, who points and says "Daddy!" Is this man really Johnny's father? And if he is, does he have custody rights with Johnny? A childcare staff worker should never be put in a position to ask these questions. Here's how you can make sure they never will be.

The number one issue in church life today is child safety and security. Until the 1990s, church leaders and parents viewed the church nursery, play area, and classroom as a kind of "holy ground." But frequent stories about broken families wrestling with visitation issues, child abductions, and pedophiles looking for children have changed all that.

Whether your church is small or large, it has a huge legal and financial liability if a child is harmed or abducted while in its care. Fortunately, the risk can be managed at any church through carefully monitored policies and procedures. Larger churches that deal with dozens or even hundreds of children can use affordable products and services to streamline the process and insure security for all children. Parents will feel comfortable knowing that their children are cared for in a safe, secure environment.

A childcare check-in system protects children and families by monitoring a child's participation and preventing unauthorized persons from taking possession of the child. In many smaller churches, where only a handful of children are cared for during a service, an effective childcare check-in system can be as simple as a sign-in/sign-out sheet.

Children must also be protected by a lockable door with a window so that the caregiver can see who is waiting to take the child. "It is so important to control the points of access," says Eric Spacek of GuideOne Insurance. "A child cannot be allowed to move around the education area unsupervised."

Nursery and childcare programs usually require volunteers to operate the program and monitor the children. In addition to protection against unauthorized child pick-up, the use of a computer-based check-in system ensures that only volunteers and childcare staff who have passed a careful background check are able to check-in and care for the children. Nursery and children's ministries workers must use the system to identify themselves by logging in with their personal passwords.

A congregation with around 200 people in attendance should seriously consider a computer-based check-in/check-out system to protect children. With the larger number of children in this size of church, caregivers and instructors will not necessarily know everyone. It also takes some time for new people to become known, so an up-to-date, electronic database is the answer. Also, visitors might have hesitations about the effectiveness of low-budget childcare security.

In larger congregations the childcare check-in system must be automated in order to efficiently and accurately monitor all children. But even a semi-automated childcare tracking system is vulnerable, so technology is no substitute for policies and rigorous enforcement. In this age of robust home computer systems, tech-savvy persons could duplicate a permanent ID card issued by a church.

next page... |  1 of 5

share this page