Child safety training is a simple church security measure almost any church can easily implement. The benefits to training children’s ministry staff and volunteers in child abuse recognition and reporting are numerous.
It is an unfortunate fact in our society that children are abused sexually, emotionally and physically. Church volunteers often have contact with these children in Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, or children’s ministry events through community outreach programs where children are brought into the church.
Having an opportunity to stop child abuse can have a huge positive impact on a child who endures it repeatedly, but only when a church ministry team has had the proper training to recognize the warning signs for child abuse.
Church Security Alliance co-founder Glen Evans states, “A comprehensive child safety training program for church employees and volunteers is becoming as necessary as church background checks. Churches can no longer afford to ignore this most elementary, and easily implemented security step. Recent news reports highlight the fact we cannot ignore this issue any longer.”
A church child safety training program should incorporate several elements. First, the program should be comprehensive and complete. The church volunteer should be able to define child abuse, recognize behaviors that identify potential abusers, and know how to report suspected abuse to authorities.
Second, a church safety program should be able to document that training has occurred and the person attending the training has an understanding of the material presented.
Evans states, “Protect My Ministry has the best solution we have seen. It allows everybody within a ministry to watch several short videos, take a quiz, and documents a ministry’s efforts to train their staff effectively.”
ProtectMyMinistry.com has recently integrated a training program into its church security and risk managment solution, Ministry Mobilizer. Many churches have good intentions for training their ministry team, but high turn over, busy schedules, and lack of time make this type of training easy to miss or squeeze out.
Protect My Ministry provides a program where a children’s church or nursery volunteer can log on to the site, watch 7 videos within 55 minutes, and take a quiz from any computer with an internet connection. The program is very affordable and also assists a church or ministry with background checks and child ministry organization.
The best part of Protect My Ministry’s child safety program is that it is a solution for any sized church. Many churches lack the resources, expertise and money to hold a yearly training. Protect My Ministry provides an easy solution for this problem, and delivers a quality program your church can be proud to offer.
