the first 3 questions for a church-based respite outreach event

I'll be posting this week and next about our Access Ministry room and this past weekend's respite event. Before we can dive into the details of our respite care event and the tips I have for launching respite at your church, let's address the preliminaries...

What are the first three questions you need to answer for a church-based respite outreach event?

Before I get to those, though, let's define a few terms:

• church-based: I'm talking about the local church, which might but doesn't necessarily include members who are specially trained to work with people who have disabilities
• respite: Merriam-Webster's second definition of this word is fitting here: "an interval of rest or relief." In the special needs community, this is a period of time in which care is provided for the person with a disability so that the caregiver can have the gift of time. If we were talking about kids without disabilities, we would call it a parents' night out. Respite can be overnight or longer, but almost all church-based or -supported respite events last no more than a few hours.
• outreach: In Raleigh, NC, I only know two churches that offer respite care: ours and one other. The other church limits their respite event to regular church attendees. The respite events at our church, though, are for our members as well as other families in our community. Because of an odd combination of illnesses and extended family visiting from out of town, none of our members were able to attend this past weekend, so all of our guests were families who had never come to our church before Saturday afternoon.

Now that we've defined those terms, I bet you'd like to know those three important questions. Here they are, in no particular order:

(1) How will you keep your guests safe?

(2) How will you keep your guests safe?

(3) How will you keep your guests safe?

Yes, you want all of your guests to have fun. I'll be posting about that too. But if your event is fun and not safe, you'll be a one-hit wonder. Or, actually, a one-fail wonder. Parents and caregivers of those with disabilities are more savvy and knowledgeable than most other parents I know. They won't trust us with their children if we can only offer promises of fun. They will (rightfully) want to know first if the event will be safe.

I'll get into the finer details of each of these in future posts, but you need to be prepared with:

• a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child
• an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
• a medical form (if not included in your intake form) that allows your church to have the authority to take medical action on behalf of the family if an accident or other medical emergency arises
• background check forms to screen your volunteers
• elopement plans (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
• bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
• medical professionals for the event (could be volunteer or paid)
• at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
• a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
• a safe check-in procedure

I don't provide this list to scare you. I will have posts related to each to equip you. I just want to be clear before I offer any of that: if you are not ready to plan for each child's safety, then you're simply not ready to even begin thinking about offering respite. It isn't rocket science. It isn't unduly challenging. It isn't too hard.

But it is work, and it does require planning. I'd love to help you learn more. Come back tomorrow for tips for each of these safety measures.