The Child Safeguarding Policy for Churches and Ministries by GRACE

Does your church or ministry need help developing a policy to keep children safe? The GRACE team with multi-disciplinary knowledge, headed by Boz Tchividjian, a lawyer and former child abuse prosecutor, want to help you create a plan with their new book and resource, The Child Safeguarding Policy for Churches and Ministries. Creating a policy can seem too overwhelming, and it feels like an impossible task to plan for every contingency. This handbook is designed for use by a group that will be formulating policies and procedures to protect children and deal with possible child abuse in their ministry, school, and/or church. Working through this book will assist churches and ministries to assess their current child abuse polices and then guide them through each step they need to take to address the safety of children under their care.

About the Book

The Child Safeguarding Policy for Churches and Ministries (New Growth Press, August 2017)

Churches have always sought to be a safe haven for children and families, but many today are dealing with the tragic reality of child sexual abuse.

This handbook, authored and edited by a multidisciplinary team of child abuse experts, is designed for use by a group that will be formulating policies and procedures to protect children and deal with possible child abuse in their ministry, school, and/or church. Working through this book will assist churches and ministries to assess their current child abuse polices and then guide them through each step they need to take to address the safety of children under their care. It will cover vitally important topics including:

—Protecting the children in a Christian environment from child abuse
—The warning signs of child abuse
—Crafting and implement a child protection policy
—Responding to abuse allegations
—Caring for victims of child abuse
—The legal implications and requirements for churches and Christian ministries

Written by a GRACE team with multi-disciplinary knowledge, headed by Boz Tchividjian, a lawyer and former child abuse prosecutor, this handbook will be an invaluable resource to Christians who are seeking to educate themselves and others about child abuse and how to best protect the little ones under their care.

Learn more and purchase a copy.

 

About the Authors

(Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) is a nonprofit organization made up of highly trained, experienced multidisciplinary professionals who seek to educate and empower the Christian community to identify, confront, and respond to the sin of child abuse.

Find out more about GRACE at http://www.netgrace.org.

Margie’s Comments

The Child Safeguarding Policy for Churches and Ministries is the book any Christian ministry needs in order to set up a policy for employees and volunteers in a church, school, camp, or any para-church ministry that works with children. Over the years I have worked in almost every area of ministry at our church, including the school and camp our church owns. Twenty years ago, the state of Colorado required all “religious” entities that work with children to have a written policy of what abuse is, and how we intended to keep the laws set up to protect the children who came through the church, school, or camp.

                 

Today my son and daughter-in-love head up the training each employee or volunteer at our church must go through each year in order to work with the children the Lord brings into each ministry. (They will get my copy of this e-book that was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.) There are many organizations out there who actually can help in training employees and volunteers in order to be in compliance with each state’s laws concerning abuse. But those who wrote this policy book are considered among the most experienced with the most practical advice.

The book is divided into five sections covering a definition of every kind of abuse, a plan for protecting the children in our ministry, a plan for responding to policy violations and child abuse, a plan for ministering to those who have been abused, and a plan for living the policy. Each chapter ends with a sample wording for a church policy manual, plus sample forms located in the Appendices. Having been through the training for adults working in children’s ministries, I found this book to cover each topic thoroughly with easy to understand narrative and case studies. The sample forms easily delineate what each is for and why it exists. As a former teacher, mom, grandma, camp kitchen coordinator and counselor, I found this book extremely helpful and thorough in helping a ministry like ours make sure they are in compliance with the law. I highly recommend the book and commend the authors for addressing this difficult topic in a kind and compassionate way.