Safeguarding Policies 2021
Dear Safeguarding Community,
Thank you for your agility and creativity this past year in adapting Safeguarding policies to virtual platforms as we gathered online for worship, fellowship, and learning. The Wellness and Care team appreciates your faithful efforts to protect the members of your community in changing circumstances.
Attached are the new SGC and SGP policies for 2021. Fortunately, few changes of substance were needed this year. Click here for the highlights.
- In SGC and SGP, we eliminated the definitions of terms that were not actually needed for the policies themselves.
- The Social Media Policy has been reworked in both the SGC and SGP polices to address the increased use of virtual platforms. Each set of policies now has its own appropriate version of a Virtual Ministry, Social Media, and Digital Communications policy (SGC III.K; SGP.III.E).
- We clarified what it means to be the Responsible Adult for an event that is held virtually for children or youth (SGC III.C) or Vulnerable Adults (SGP IV.B).
- In SGC, we provided additional examples of ways that we show respect to children and youth whose experiences are different from ours (SGC II.A.1), and we have expanded the examples of children or youth who may require accommodations for restrooms and showers to include children who have medical issues or a history of bullying or abuse (SGC III.J.3). Because we all care deeply for our young people and wish to support them in the difficult business of growing up, it’s important that we support each other in finding ways to nurture them. We always welcome hearing about the challenges that you’ve encountered in your ministries and how you have responded. And, of course, we are always ready to help you think through a situation.
- In SGC, we added the requirement that a list be kept of everyone who has keys for general access to your organization’s buildings (SGC III.B.3). We also clarified when key holders should be considered “Personnel” (and thus certified in SGC) to focus on the possible presence in the buildings of children may are not adequately supervised (SGC I.B). We strongly encourage every organization to give deliberate thought both to who has access to locked buildings and whether or not that access poses risks to children or youth.
In the coming weeks, we will be updating some Help Sheets and creating others, so please take the time to share with us your questions and your comments. This works is too important for any of us to do it alone!
-The Wellness and Care Team