Safety and Security Starts with Policies

To protect children at church, policies and procedures must be in place. Who gets access to your children? What policies are being put in place to keep children safe? If no policies are in place, now is the time to get started. 

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Amber Pike (00:00.83)
Welcome back to the Kidman Huddle. Are you more of the creative type? The let me make the props, let me come up with the ideas, or more of the administrative policy and procedure spreadsheet kind of person? I definitely am in the let me create, let me teach, I want to write the lessons. A lot of you are this way, but there are you crazy spreadsheet people. We need both.

And regardless of how you're geared, if you want to have a successful ministry, you have to have good policies and procedures. When it comes to keeping kids safe, and we can't have the use for all of the creative stuff, right? Like we can't teach the lessons or have the VBS or have the cool events if parents aren't bringing kids because they don't feel they're safe. And in order for this to happen, it starts with our policies and procedures. So when I see people asking the question or get asked,

Hey, I'm new to children's ministry, what do I do first? I have a twofold answer. One, it's what we're teaching because that's the purpose of children's ministry is to point kids to Jesus. But then it's equally as important to make sure that we have policies and procedure in place to make sure that we're keeping kids safe. So this episode is for anyone who has no policies and procedure, people who are like, let me make sure that I'm doing all that I need to do.

Even if you already feel like you're rocking it, maybe you're going to get some ideas or some insight. So I want to start with a caution. This caution is especially for my small, small medium churches. You often think, well, I don't have the money. I can't afford a check in program. It's not going to happen to us. We have known everybody forever. Yada, yada, yada. You are wrong.

I'm just going to tell you now. I am small church at one of the churches that I served on. One of our church staff was arrested in an FBI sting as he, a middle aged man, was purchasing a 10 year old child for. Yes. It can absolutely happen in your church, even if you are small church.

Amber Pike (02:22.26)
in the most Bible-believing town that there has been in the Bible Belt. It can happen at your church. You need policies and procedures in place to protect your kids. This means no one has access to your children that has not been vetted properly. Now, obviously, so take this former person that I worked with.

He had been vetted and it still didn't catch him.

Background checks policies all of those things are going to catch the ones who've already been caught But we have these in place for a reason one if you Side note, please go check out kid check comm I think it's comm kid check you'll find them They have so many amazing resources for you on this statistics blogs trainings all this go check them out. They're But they have found

in their research that it is small and medium churches that predators are targeting because they are often a little more lax in safety and security than large or mega church. We do not want a single child to come to harm in our churches. So these policies and procedures need to happen. When you have these in place, you are able to have something that gives you an out.

story time. We're going to get to like the nitty gritty in a minute, but I want to make the case for why this is important no matter your church size. We had a person come to my church within the last like year. Never met this person before and this person started throwing up some major red flags. She, man, I just love kids and I want to work with the kids. Okay, nice to meet you. She gets my email. She starts emailing me.

Amber Pike (04:24.334)
Then she starts telling me, and I'm not giving, you know, I'm giving like the nice non-committal answer of, oh yeah, kids are great. I'm never saying, we'd love to have you as a volunteer. No, small church, extra volunteer, someone who loves kids, wonderful, but no. So she then starts giving me this story of how when she had, when it's her weekend to have her daughter, how she's gonna need to be in there with her daughter because her daughter has anxiety issues and.

She just is pushing really hard to get in the classroom. And for me, this is a...

Amber Pike (05:02.882)
I don't know if that sound translated well on a podcast, but hopefully it did. And that was my little warning bell going off in my head. And her daughter was way older and doesn't live with mom. So I really wasn't buying the, my daughter has separation issue. Now I'm not knocking, maybe the child does, but all of this cumulatively was a red flag for me. And so I talked with my security team, who is my father.

My dad is a large man. is 6'1", you know, 250 and half the class are his grandkids and I'm his daughter and he would absolutely take out any threat in any way possible. And we're in Kentucky. So there you go. And I said, OK, hey, dad, here's what I would like. I'm going to offer to this mom. She may, after completion of a background check that has passed and been cleared, she may come sit in class one time.

to help her daughter get comfortable. After that, she will not be allowed in class anymore, but I would like for you to be in the class the whole time with us. I want an extra set of eyes on her." And he's like, sure, whatever you need. I relayed this to the woman with the background check. I need the form filled out and sent back to me. I've not heard from her since. When you ghost someone when background check is mentioned, that is another red flag.

We need to pay attention to those flags, to be training ourselves, our team on what those flags are. But I had a policy in place and my policy, full transparency, I was newer at this church. I did not have my policy written out. My policy lived in my head. It was the same policy that I've used at multiple churches. It was not written out. Guess what happened? Before I responded to her, my policy got written out and it was sent to the pastors and deacons to everyone sign off on.

That policy was then able to be stated. So number one, you need a policy. I'm holding up here. This is my children's ministry policy and procedure manual. This needs to be created. Name it whatever you would like to name it, but you need your policies stated out for who is eligible to serve in your ministry, how you are seeing if they are eligible. What is this policy? How?

Amber Pike (07:29.538)
Do adults get access to your kids and what steps are being taken to protect your kids? You need this in writing, not something that has only been seen by you. This needs to be known. It needs to be sent out. Why? Because when someone comes with ill intent, you have a policy. Here's our policy. I'm sorry you walked in off the street. I love that you love kids and you've served in preschool for

all of your life, we have a policy in place and I would love to talk to you about our policy and then when those credentials have been filled, met, we can talk about you volunteering.

You need this. So what does this look like? OK, one, I'm just going to kind of go through this a little bit with you. Hey, reach out to me. apike at RenewaNation.org. apike0292 at gmail.com. Go to amberpike.org. If you need some help on your policy, I'll send you my policy. Reach out to me.

So mission values, all of that stuff, yes. But we're talking about the things specifically that are going to keep kids safe. So one thing training that your team needs every year is reporting of abuse. As ministry leaders, we are mandatory reporters. What does that look like? Has it been properly articulated to your team to where you know what happens? Now, this isn't just like, this is a good idea. We should have this. This can keep a kid safe or not. So when it's not articulated, let's say

We suspect that little Billy has been abused. But, you know, we're not sure. So, hey, Martha, did you see that bruise in his private parts? Do you think his mama? I don't know. I know his mama. Let me go talk to his mama. And you go, I don't know why I got all country there. Sorry about that. Then the rumor mill starts and a child who is in harm could then be in more harm. It is not your job to investigate. You are not trained to investigate. You are trained to report it to people who

Amber Pike (09:30.656)
are trained and qualified to investigate. You are not gossiping with your friends. You take it straight chain of command. Who's this supposed to go to? Do your people go straight to the pastor? Do they come to you and you take it to the pastor? This needs to be trained. I also think that you need a yearly training on recognizing signs of abuse. You know, a child who is bruised in strange spots, the bruises look like hand marks. They have trouble sitting down.

because of pain, not just because they're wiggly. They are flinching with, you know, if a hand cut and they're flinching like they're going to be hit, if they're saying certain things, all of these things are things that we need to watch for. If we want to share the love of Jesus, kids need to be safe. So training on abuse, how we're reporting it. OK, what else should be in our policy? Well, what is our volunteer policy on who is in the room?

How are we making sure that we are protecting the kids in the room, but then also the volunteers? So two adults per room, open door, window, unrelated adults. What does this look like to where we are making sure the kids in the room are safe, but then also the volunteers are safe? In nursery, especially, I would have the policy of it can't be married adults. You're changing a kid's diaper. And married adults, well, no, they didn't do anything wrong.

We want to be able to protect. So we want unrelated adults. Well, no, know, Billy did exactly everything right. I don't know. This was not here. I was in the room the whole time. Yeah, it's it's protection. Yes. What is our bathroom policy? There should be a policy, you know, a seven year old doesn't need your volunteers help one party. Now, special needs are that's a different conversation. But what is your policy? This is protecting everybody involved.

Medication. How are we administering medication? And honestly, my personal opinion, we are not. You don't know when a kid could have an allergic reaction to something as simple as Neosporin. So I give Band-Aids, ice packs, and wet paper towels, and that is it. Now, if I'm in an overnight situation, completely different, I'm going to have a conversation with mom and dad if something happens, if a kid has a tummy ache and they need some Pepto-Bismol.

Amber Pike (11:58.24)
I call mom and dad, get verbal permission, yada, yada, yada. If I'm giving them their prescribed medicine, mom hands to me before we leave. That's different, but in a normal church hour long situation, if it's severe enough to need medication or medical attention, hey, parent, come get your kid. Band-aids, ice packs, wet paper towels will cure so many things. What is your chaperone policy? Think about especially overnight trips.

And then I'm going to come back to I'm going come back to these three points because I want to while we're here talk about our volunteer application process. This is line one in protecting our kids. So every church, even if you are a kind of more transient church, maybe if you live in a military town, a college town where there are people in and out, I still think you need a rules for being a volunteer.

So I here's my policy. All volunteers must complete the application volunteer application, which includes signing the consent consent to background check, a doctor and doctor and role statement and a reference check. I do not have an anybody will do mentality. If you are teaching my kids, I want to know what you're teaching. So, yeah, you got to fill out all of these. But in order to fill out all these point number two.

All volunteers must be a regular attending member for one year prior in order to serve. Ooh, why did I do one year? I would be okay with six months as well, but I would rather be safe than sorry. So I gave one year. Why? Because we do not want Joe Blow walking in off the street and saying, I'm here to volunteer.

If they truly care about children and want to use their gifts and talents to serve, they will be happy waiting a year. I'm not doing what you've been coming here for a year. No, you need to be a member for a year. If your church doesn't do membership, as some churches don't, I'm old school Baptist, we have membership. If your church does not do membership, especially those transient communities, how are you making sure that they're just not targeting you because they know they don't have to go long?

Amber Pike (14:16.52)
Are you making sure that they are attending regularly? What does regularly look like? Spell it out, have something in place. That is a sure fire way to weed out some potential predators. You need to be here, not off the street. Number three, background check. Background checks need to be done. Now, this is only going to catch someone who is guilty and has already been convicted. And not all background checks are created equal.

You need to make sure that the resource, company that you're using is checking for the right things. Often the state testing is not enough. want a national search that is doing everything. Petty crimes, sex registry, all of that. It's worth the money. Yeah, it's going to cost more to get a background check. It is worth that money.

And then policies and procedure, they need to go through the manual, sign it, date it, here's everything spelled out, all that stuff that I just talked to you about and a little bit more, and be willing to submit to an interview by the Children's Ministry director or leader, insert your title. I also have a disclaimer that the church reserves the right to revoke a volunteer's ability to serve in children's ministry with or without notice at any time for any reason. Just because you made it through the process doesn't mean that you suddenly don't do something or get caught.

We also want to listen to our intuition. Like this just doesn't feel right. Listen to that. It's the Holy Spirit sometimes telling you this is not okay. I have had situations where there are people that I watch and my family is a very protective family. So if our church, we've got, you know, our traditional pews, our family sits in this overflow area and my parents have a straight line of sight to the doorway to the building that I'm in.

with the kids. My dad is trustee and security. I've dubbed him security. He goes and he locks all of the doors in that building between the Sunday school hour and children's church hour, the worship hour. All the doors are locked except for that one door that he has a line of sight on. There was one time where this was before I was in charge. Someone came like 20 minutes into service and I saw them in the parking lot and they went into that building, that building that was only the kids.

Amber Pike (16:34.446)
and both dad and I look at each other. And so my dad gets up and he goes out to the front of the building, goes out our front doors and he goes to check. And I'm like, you know, I just feel this was a little weird. So I got up and I'm like, I'm gonna go check on the kids. And I went and I checked that building and I popped in and I'm just like, hey, I just wanted to see how you guys are doing. But you know what I did because I'm not a trusting person. I went and I checked the bathrooms because I'm like, why was he in there?

He came and he did sit down in worship. And so he was just very late and had actually been invited by the pastor, but I didn't know him. I'd never seen him before. It was a guy by himself. And he went to the building with children first 20, 30 minutes into service. I went and I checked the bathrooms. I'm like, you didn't like hide someone in here. Did you plan to bomb? I don't know. I'm making sure everything's okay. I would rather be safe than sorry. You need these plans in place. We have to make sure that the people we are allowing to have access to our kids,

are people who should have access to our kids. You need a membership requirement or an attendance requirement. This is the bare minimum. A background check is the bare minimum. They need to pass this check. If someone has stuff on their record that they don't want you to know about, they will withdraw their application at this point. You've weeded somebody else, then you probably need to do some digging and see, do they need a tail at church? Because maybe they are a predator and they think it's gonna be easy access.

We have to protect our children. So who is getting access to your kids? This volunteer application process needs to be put in writing and enforced. We're not gonna make an exception for Bobby because he's just great and he's been a school teacher. Enforce it, do it. A policy on paper is no good. So you need to have these forms. What company is your church using for background check forms?

Make a form. You have it with you. Here's my form. This one's the wrinkled one that lives in my bag. It's a short and sweet one. Here's what we need. And this is what I'm going to run my background checks through. I use ministry mobilizer from Protect My Ministry. That is who I'm running my background checks through. I have a policy of every five years. So when I was we had not had background checks in forever at the church that I am at.

Amber Pike (18:56.335)
Was I running background checks on my 80 year old members who are serving? You betcha. Did I really feel like Miss Jackie, who is getting on her walker to come and do the memory verse with the kids at snack time? Do I really think it's going to show something on her? Was that a waste of $25? Well, I knew it would come back clear, though we teased her, it didn't. But it was not a waste because it is policy. Policy should be enforced.

Okay, a couple of other things that are keeping kids safe. What is your registration policy? Because just as we are vetting who gets access to our kids in term of volunteers, we need a policy in place for parents and visitors. This is our registration policy. So what does that check-in look like? One, you need to have information on the kids, whether you are old school paper like I am, whether you are digital check-in system. I know small churches, you're like, I can't afford that. Pen and paper still works.

You need basic information on your kids name, email info for parents, parents names. Who is authorized to bring child to church, to and from church, who can check in, check out, who can pick up. You also need a spot for listening custody issues. You ministering in 2026 or whenever you're listening to this podcast, there are likely to be some custody issues.

We don't play around with those. It could mean life or death for some children. Remember, small church, I have had children who were kidnapped by parents taken across country lines. That's a big custody issue. I have other kids who have had a parent with restraining order to where I had my team, hey, if this parent shows up, I need you calling the cops.

We need to be aware of these things. So bare minimum, you have a paper sheet when a child visits first time, comes regularly, I need your child's info. We also really strive not to kill children from allergic reactions, yeah? So you need any allergy information, any medical information that is pertinent to you. We need to make sure that they are safe in our care.

Amber Pike (21:18.007)
and we need to get that the first time that they are in our care. Allergies, special needs, yes, yes, yes, you have to get that. So we're taking an intake information, but then how are we doing check-in, check-out? How are we making sure that children are going home with only the approved people? 13-year-old sibling coming to pick up is not approved. This might look different for your situation.

If you have questions, I'd love to talk to you about it and tell you how I do it in a small church mentality. If you have a check-in system, those stickers, they work, but they only work if you enforce them. So this is your checking in online. You, parent gets a sticker, kid gets a sticker, sticker goes on kid, kid only gets released to parent with that sticker. If parent loses their sticker, I gotta look you up by ID and I'm gonna make you wait and take time. It only works if it's enforced.

But why do we enforce them? Well, the same reason that we do background checks on our 80 something year old volunteers that we know have not committed any crimes. Because we're making policies and enforcing them that are keeping our kids safe because on the hopefully never happens chance that something happens. We've had these policies, so hopefully we are keeping it from happening. I also think on your check in, you need to have a photo and video release.

I do this on my VBS form. You have to. It's a requirement on the online paper when you need to tell me, do I have your permission to take your kid's picture and post it on social media? I have it on my registration form as well. Now, hopefully this is not a new concept to you, but if it is, let me tell you a little, little something, you might not agree with it. Your opinion is irrelevant. You respect the parents wishes because

you don't know why they do not want their children on social media. I have had kids who cannot have their picture on social media because parents might find out where they are and it could endanger the child's life. I've had kids who cannot be on social media because their parent has been targeted before and this could lead people to the parent. Foster situations, kids in foster care cannot be on social media because it could endanger the child, it could let the parent know where they are.

Amber Pike (23:41.239)
restraining orders, all of this. There are some parents that just don't want their kids on social media. That is absolutely okay. Here is what I do, however, especially for VBS. I have had over the years several parents who say, no, I do not want my kids' picture taken at VBS. Now, I will put a special thing on their name tag. They get a special star. I have communicated to all of my leaders about this. But I then have a conversation face-to-face if I can, email if not with parent and said,

Hi, I absolutely respect your opinion. I just want to make you aware, however, that your child will not be featured in our VBS slideshow or our group picture. Are you okay with this? I don't want because like you guys know how parents can be. I don't want a parent to be mad at me after they said I can't take their kids picture and then going, why wasn't my kid in the slideshow? I have had many times the parents are like, no, that's fine.

Then I might have some follow up questions, but I want to make sure that the parents are okay with it. Hey, you realize by this, which I totally respect, means that they're not going to be in this picture. They're not going to be in the slideshow. I respect your wishes and we will do whatever you say. That I just think is going that step further. That means a lot to parents that you truly care about their children. I also on my registration form have a section about the child's spiritual background, especially when it comes to

communion. We in the Baptist Church do believers baptism for communion. If you have been become a Christian who has been baptized, you are invited to take the Lord's Supper at our church. I do not let a child take communion unless I have heard from mom or dad or witnessed with my own eyes the child's baptism. And this is just another layer because sometimes I don't know about you guys, I have a pew full of children that aren't necessarily mine.

I've had church situations where we are in children's ministry during communion and deacons are bringing it to us and it is up to me, my team to run interference on who is allowed to take communion or not. So I highly suggest this be a part on your background check form or I'm sorry, your intake form for children, your registration form. This would be maybe not a, visitor, glad you're here.

Amber Pike (26:10.243)
But you guys are regularly coming, I need to know this. I also need to know when communion is going to be to where I can know when I need to have these. So there you go. These are some standard policies that I think you need to have. Who are we giving access to our kids? How are we making sure that our kids are staying safe, both in our ministry, who is getting access to them, how we are doing check-in, check-out, how we are noting their...

allergies and information and then how we're handling social media and photos. We cannot teach truths of God's word. We cannot disciple these kids if moms and dads do not feel comfortable leaving their kids in our ministry. So we have to put policies in place. We need written policies that have been communicated to the pastoral staff, to deacons, elders, parents.

I as a parent want to know these things. I want to know that my kid is safe. So this needs to not just live in your computer. It needs to be put in motion and enforced. You can have the best policy in the world, but if nobody is enforcing it, it's not keeping anybody safe. Again, I really recommend that you check out KidCheck. They have amazing resources. Like I mentioned, I use Protect My Ministry for my background checks. They do have trainings. Man, you guys need to be training your team.

send them this video, make your own training, how are you training your team? Super, super, super important. Please reach out if you have questions, if you're not sure where to start. I do cover this in my book, Intentional Children's Ministry. My registration form is in there, my background check stuff is in there. Definitely check out that chapter. It is so vitally important that we are putting policies in motion, enforcing them to where we can keep kids safe.

Reach out if you have questions, check out Intentional Children's Ministry, and remember, what you do matters.