•     There are so many excellent resources available to us to provide unique and effective teaching tools, so in each issue I will give just a quick look at some of these excellent resources and encourage you to add them to your resource library. 

Safe Place  Development Team:  Burt Manchester, Marv Parker & Brenda Phillips  Publisher - Christian & Missionary Alliance

     I agree with the introduction, "the CMA cannot give legal counsel or advise (neither do I) but they do want to encourage churches to do everything possible to provide a safe and secure ministry environment for every individual at every age level." This resource provides thorough information and is an excellent tool to help you develop a safety policy that will work for your church. 

FAVORITE FEATURES: 

• issues section helps you clearly understand what abuse is and what the church's responsibility is 
• recruiting section provides a six-step procedure for approving volunteers 
• training section emphasizes the importance and need for training 
• environment section provides vital information on staffing and supervising, nursery and preschool, elementary, health and safety, housekeeping, injury/illness, building safety, proper displays of affection, special events/overnight policies and discipline 
• what to do and how to respond to allegations of abuse 
• how to report possible abuse 
• what to do about communicable diseases 
• reproducible forms 

     Again, it saddens me greatly that we need to be concerned with abuse in the church, but it is an issue we must deal with and do all we can to guard against.  This resource provides excellent information and helpful forms to aid you in making your church a safe place.  I highly recommend this as an excellent resource for all churches.  Extremely well done Burt, Marv, Brenda and the Christian & Missionary Alliance! 
 

     * Please keep in mind when you are developing a child safety policy to include a Building Respect Policy as well.  I know of churches who have excellent child abuse prevention policies, but do not truly protect kids because they allow kids to be unsupervised in the building and on the grounds and to run wild inside and out.  This is the making for a very dangerous situation.  Not only are the building and resources at risk of damage in this situation, but the children could be gravely injured as well which leaves the church open to liability.  A Building Respect Policy is a very important part of a complete child safety policy, but can be very difficult to implement as there are some parents who do not want to keep and eye on their children at church and will therefore fight you on implementing these policies.  I recommend getting the pastor and board to understand the need for this policy and then have them be willing to handle all objections. 

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