By Eric Spacek

During the business of Sunday mornings, a centralized location for the registration of children helps control the flow of traffic and access to children. Upon entering the church, no one should be able to immediately reach a nursery or Sunday school classroom entrance without passing through the main children’s area. During the week, access to children’s areas should be restricted. Exterior doors — other than the main daycare entrance — should remain locked, and the unlocked entrance monitored. Even better, an electronic access system provides the best security from outside intruders.

Young children should only be released to a parent or to another person authorized by the parent. One way to ensure this is by using a checkin/check-out system.

First, the parent signs the child into the church’s care. At that time, two identification tags or cards are produced: One is affixed to the child’s clothing, and the other is given to the parent. The person picking up the child must produce the card corresponding to the child to sign out him or her. If the person is unable to produce the card, the child won’t be released. Ministry leaders will need to become involved in the event of a lost or misplaced card.

A basic safeguard in protecting children is screening the paid workers or volunteers who will be caring for them. A three-part method works best in most situations:

Step 1: Implement a waiting period of six months’ involvement in the church before a new volunteer is allowed to care for children.

Step 2: Check at least two references of the individual, preferably at places where he or she has worked or volunteered with children in the past.

Step 3: Conduct a criminal background check.

Many companies now offer computerized national criminal background searches. Check with your church’s insurance company to see if discounted pricing is available. Additional screening (such as fingerprinting) might be required by local licensing requirements if your church has a formal daycare or preschool.

Assigning too few or too many children to a single adult raises concerns. The best approach is to always have two unrelated adults supervising the children.

Appropriate adult-to-child ratios vary by a child’s age. Check state daycare licensing regulations to see the standard in your state. For the safety of your children and your workers, never leave one child alone with a single adult.

Once considered to be out of reach because of cost, technological advances have made tools such as nursery paging systems and security cameras affordable. A paging system — particularly for visiting parents — can serve as a check-in/checkout tool, as well as facilitating communication and providing peace of mind to anxious parents.

Security cameras in nursery and child care rooms serve several purposes: They can deter, as well as capture, inappropriate behavior; they can provide information about whether or not a child was injured while in the church’s care; they can be used to train workers; and they can protect your children’s workers from false allegations against them. More sophisticated centers use Web cameras and streaming video that enable parents, upon entering a password, to check on their child via video during the course of the day.

To keep nursery and daycare facilities safe, nothing can substitute for regular inspections of the premises. Special attention should be given to identifying and correcting safety hazards for children, such as unprotected outlets; unlocked cabinets, or closets containing chemical cleaners; broken or damaged furniture or furnishings; and the presence of small objects and other choking hazards.

Churches should be prepared for evacuation of the nursery due to fire or other emergencies. The first step is to develop an evacuation plan that addresses how infants and toddlers will be removed from the building, and who will assist in that process.

Next, the plan should be clearly communicated to parents and practiced. For medical emergencies, leaders should be trained in CPR and first aid, and a process should be put in place for communicating medical emergencies to both 911 and to parents.

Each step is one block in building a safe, secure environment for your church’s children. Taken together, these measures can go a long way toward protecting the kids in your congregation’s care.

As senior church risk manager at GuideOne Insurance, Eric Spacek is responsible for the research, development, recommendation and implementation of GuideOne’s strategic risk-management programs. Contact him by calling 877.448.4331 ext. 5118 or by email at espacek@guideone.com. More information is available at www.guideonecenter.com.