Tag Archives: church background check

The value of child safety training

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At Protect My Ministry we work with over 5,000 churches in all 50 states to provide background checks as well as child protection policies and procedures. And while background checks are a vital piece of your child protection policy, it cannot be the only safeguard the church has in place. More and more churches are upgrading their policies to include additional safeguards:

  • Written policies with signed agreements from all volunteers
  • Camera systems/video monitoring
  • Sophisticated check-in systems
  • Two-person rule for all classroom settings
  • Child Safety Training

The value of these and especially the Child Safety training cannot be overstated. In fact, 90% of those that commit crimes in the church do not have a criminal history so the background checks are limited in preventing predators from making it through the front door. Take the following case as an example:

Upon investigating the home of Joseph Emil Klug in September of 2009, FBI agents found the equivalent of a truckload of child pornography. Klug volunteered for the Royal Rangers program, a church ministry for boys, and frequently had access to camping trips and other overnight activites. During those activities Klug would secretly film boys in his group showering and going to the bathroom. Klug had no prior criminal records that would have indicated he was a sexual predator.

A final report concluded that Klug had collected about 59,000 images and 12,000 videos of minors engaging in sex. Some of those images contained sexual assaults involving infants and prepubescent children, bondage, and bestiality. Klug had also falsely portrayed himself as a father of a boy in online chat rooms and provided advice on how to groom and assault children while avoiding getting caught.

And that is the key. There is a method and a process that predators follow in order to gain access to vulnerable persons and build a relationship with those they intend to abuse. Protect My Ministry offers a child safety training  program to help churches put safeguards in place and teach other volunteers how to spot signs of grooming and other red flags. This can help stop an abuser before they ever gain the trust of other parents and volunteers and help make your church a safe place.

For more information about Protect My Ministry’s child safety training click here.

Go to www.protectmyministry.com for more information about volunteer background checks.

Church Child Protection

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Most churches are searching for church child protection strategies to help protect kids attending Sunday school and weekly church activities on church campus. Unfortunately, many churches do not take a pro-active approach to child protection in church until a preventable church child abuse tragedy has occurred.

What steps can a church take to increase church child protection that is practical and affordable? The first step is to honestly assess where your church stands right now. It is important to recognize there are external threats and internal threats.

The most obvious external threat is a child abduction attempt. This happens rarely. Many churches have adopted strict policies regarding check in and check out procedures, and numerous software programs have been introduced into the market to help church staff keep track of children entering into their ministry area. These are often expensive software programs that require hardware purchases as well.

The unfortunate truth is most incidents of violence against children in church are committed by people internally.

Church child abuse usually involves a trusted adult, who tenaciously works to groom and develop relationships with children under their care. A church can easily implement several steps to dramatically increase the safety and security of children at church.

First, churches should write comprehensive policies and procedures covering access points to the child ministry area, releasing of children to responsible adults, who is allowed to teach, and the requirements for anyone given this responsibility.

It is important to train your staff and volunteers in the policies and procedures. The weakest point in any policy is when someone doesn’t follow a policy. It leaves children vulnerable and having a weak link in the process exposes children to unnecessary risk. Training staff and volunteers should include expectations of each volunteer, explicit directions for carrying out the policy, and a review of the policy every year.

Secondly, a comprehensive church child protection strategy should include training all staff and volunteers in recognizing child predators, signs of abuse, and the important reporting steps they should take if they believe a child is being abused. This is an area that should not be ignored due to the liability churches may face if a child is abused. Churches often have good intentions of providing training to their staff and volunteers, but this is one area that falls through the cracks due to the turnover rate and influx of new people into the children’s ministry. It is difficult to keep accurate records and track who has taken the training and who has not.

Thirdly, churches should consider instituting a church background check program for all staff and volunteers who have access to children or children’s ministry areas. A background check program for churches may be enough to dissuade child predators from becoming involved in the children’s ministry, and may provide information on any applicant that may disqualify him from teaching.

The biggest obstacle for most churches is admitting a child left in their care could be hurt on church property by one of their own members. The next obstacle may be where to begin with the large task of implementing a church child safety policy. Protect My Ministry, the nation’s leading background check company, offers churches guidance on the best course of action to reduce church child abuse. They offer a complete risk management solution that saves time, helps churches organize the church background check process, and offers an opportunity for easily trackable child safety training through its Ministry Mobilizer solution.

Church leaders can now easily implement a child safety program that tracks all activity, helps conduct background checks easily, alerts when background checks needs to be completed, provides release forms, and provides internet based software that allows both ministry leaders and volunteers to securely input personal information. Protect My Ministry also provides a complete online child safety course that allows volunteers to watch videos when convenient for them and notifies ministry leaders when this has been accomplished.

If you are researching church child protection policies, church background checks or child safety training for your staff and volunteers, you are invited to contact Protect My Ministry at 800-319-5581. They also provide free videos for anyone seeking more information about how to implement church background checks. Click here to sign up for the church child protection videos.

Fact vs. Myth part 2

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Protect My Ministry currently serves over 5,000 different faith-based organizations in all 50 states, so we see a lot of situations and run into questions about these issues on a regular basis. So this month we will continue our investigation into more common mistakes or misconceptions many churches have regarding background checks:

Myth # 3 – “I am running a national search, so I am getting everything from every state.”

Fact – There is not a national database that comprehensively covers all 50 states criminal information. One of the reasons Protect My Ministry created an online consultation is because the type of information we get from the national database varies from state to state. Some states, like North Carolina and Texas, update their information regularly and include details on felonies, misdemeanors, convictions, and non-convictions. Other states, like Georgia and Alabama, only report felony convictions. So the type of search you run really varies depending on how much information you are looking for and how well your state reports.

Myth # 4 – “It’s not in the budget right now; we’ll just use people we know.”

Fact – You really cannot afford not to screen your volunteers. Within this objection are really two problems. First there is the assumption that you actually do know everyone in your congregation. No matter the size, one could question how well you know each person that comes through your doors. I know of a case where there was a check run on an assistant pastor who had just graduated from Bible College. After investigation it was discovered that while he was in college he had two felony arrests for spouse abuse and child abuse, as well as a restraining order against him. Sometimes you just never know. The other problem with this line of thinking is the court and legal cost the church could face if there is an allegation and there is not a child safety policy in place that includes background screening of volunteers. I have heard on several occasions that the cost to defend a church against a frivolous child molestation lawsuit can be $80,000-$100,000! And that’s just to prove that nothing happened! Background checks are cheap insurance compared to that.

 

For more information go to www.protectmyministry.com

Church Background Check 2010-10-13 21:01:55

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Fact vs. Myth part 2
Common mistakes churches make regarding their volunteer background checks

Protect My Ministry currently serves over 5,000 different faith-based organizations in all 50 states, so we see a lot of situations and run into questions about these issues on a regular basis. So this month we will continue our investigation into more common mistakes or misconceptions many churches have regarding background checks:

Myth # 3 – “I am running a national search, so I am getting everything from every state.”

Fact – There is not a national database that comprehensively covers all 50 states criminal information. One of the reasons Protect My Ministry created an online consultation is because the type of information we get from the national database varies from state to state. Some states, like North Carolina and Texas, update their information regularly and include details on felonies, misdemeanors, convictions, and non-convictions. Other states, like Georgia and Alabama, only report felony convictions. So the type of search you run really varies depending on how much information you are looking for and how well your state reports.

Myth # 4 – “It’s not in the budget right now; we’ll just use people we know.”

Fact – You really cannot afford not to screen your volunteers. Within this objection are really two problems. First there is the assumption that you actually do know everyone in your congregation. No matter the size, one could question how well you know each person that comes through your doors. I know of a case where there was a check run on an assistant pastor who had just graduated from Bible College. After investigation it was discovered that while he was in college he had two felony arrests for spouse abuse and child abuse, as well as a restraining order against him. Sometimes you just never know. The other problem with this line of thinking is the court and legal cost the church could face if there is an allegation and there is not a child safety policy in place that includes background screening of volunteers. I have heard on several occasions that the cost to defend a church against a frivolous child molestation lawsuit can be $80,000-$100,000! And that’s just to prove that nothing happened! Background checks are cheap insurance compared to that.

 

For more information go to www.protectmyministry.com

Fact vs. Myth part 1

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Top mistakes churches make regarding their volunteer background checks-

Protect My Ministry reaches out to hundreds of churches every week and in that process we hear stories from churches of every denomination, tradition, and philosophy. The most common truth about volunteer background screening we encounter is this: churches often do not know exactly what they are getting when they do a background check on their volunteers.

Over the next few months, Protect My Ministry will take time to reveal several misconceptions churches have about background checks and what we do to address these issues. Here are a few of the most common myths regarding background checks followed by the facts:

Myth # 1 – “Background checks are all the same, so why does it matter who we use?”

Fact – There are several ways to do background checks and there are hundreds of background screening companies out there for a reason; and they are not all created equally. Here are a few questions you should be asking: Am I getting felony as well as misdemeanors or just felonies? What exactly is being searched for when I run this background check? Doesn’t a national search mean I am getting all 50 states? The answers to these questions are extremely important as you develop your child safety procedures.

Myth #2 – “I am getting my checks for free from the police station (or a member of our church is a police officer and runs them for us), so I’m covered.”

Fact – While the price may be right, chances are you don’t realize what is being checked and what is not. Most people just assume everything is. The truth is many police checks are checking only the state you are in and does not include criminal information outside of your state. The only exception to that is if they are checking the NCIC (the FBI database) and if you are getting that for free the person doing that for you is almost certainly doing it illegally.

For more information please visit www.protectmyministry.com

For some of our recommendations on how to screen volunteers, click here.

Church Security Alliance Recommends Child Safety Training

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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.

Child Safety Training

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part1Protect My Ministry offers online child safety training for church and ministry staff and volunteers. Get a free video that highlights this important element of your church security and child safety policy and procedure.

Child Safety Training For Churches