Safety measures for successful church-based respite care
/Yesterday I posted about the top three questions for a church-based respite care event for kids with disabilities. If you didn't read it, click here. As a refresher, here are those questions:
(1) How will you keep your guests safe?
(2) How will you keep your guests safe?
(3) How will you keep your guests safe?
I suggested that you needed to consider each of these things for safety, and now I'll break down some more details of each for our program. Before I do that, though, I need to give a disclaimer:
This post is meant to describe what we have chosen to do at our church. Each decision was based on our church environment, leadership, and needs, and you need to consider the realities of your own church setting and operate in submission to your church leadership as you make decisions for your event. Particularly in matters of safety, you'll want to confer with whoever is responsible for legal liability matters for your congregation.
In other words, don't expect any guarantee of success or safety if you just blindly adopt what we've done. I will blog next week with insights from other churches, which will allow me to provide you with more varied practical perspectives. Finally, please remember that God is the source of all wisdom for all things. Seek his guidance, and value it much more than any tips I offer here.
The safety measures I mentioned yesterday were:
- a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child
- Why? We live in a fallen world, which means sin pervades the church as well as secular environments. Because children with disabilities are more likely to be neglected, physically abused, and sexually abused than their non-disabled peers (source), it is our responsibility to exercise extra caution when working with this group of kids. Having a policy that no volunteer is ever alone with a child with special needs keeps them both safe: (1) the child isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be abused without witnesses and (2) the volunteer isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be accused wrongfully of abuse.
- How? Walk through the event space physically with your team. It might even help to have one member of the team act as the volunteer and another as a child with special needs. In each space, discuss as a team, "How could this activity or space cause challenges for adhering to this policy?" For us, that helped us realize that between check-in (which took place in our children's building lobby) and entry into our respite space (which was the second floor of the building), kids would ride alone with their one-on-one volunteer in the elevator. What did we do? Recruited a gracious volunteer to sit on a stool in the elevator for about 30 minutes, going up and down with kids and their volunteers. Then she hung out by the elevator upstairs to accompany them down if they needed to head out to the playground (and we had another volunteer hanging out on the playground to receive that child/volunteer pair).
- an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
- Why? Even if you have an extensive conversation with a parent, you might misunderstand something and you won't remember everything. This form gives you their own words (with their signature for documentation purposes) so you don't miss anything.
- How? Here's our form.We borrowed heavily from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, as well as pulling some elements from a few other churches, so feel free to borrow from ours as well. If you'd like the .doc version, email me.
- 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
- Why? Parents won't be there. If a child. for example, has a seizure or falls off playground equipment, you need to have basic knowledge and permission to treat the child, especially if mom or dad has turned off or forgotten to charge the cell phone.
- How? We have two basic ones we use at our church, one that has to be notarized which we use for trips outside of our county and one that doesn't have to be notarized for use when parents will not be on site but when the event will be in our county. Because our respite events are church-based and only three hours long, we use the in-county one that doesn't require a notary, which makes it easier for parents. This is the form we require for each child, including those with disabilities and their siblings (because siblings can have an accident too!).
- background check forms to screen your volunteers
- Why? As I mentioned above, we live in a fallen world. None of us is sinless, and none of us is a perfect judge of character, other than God. Events in which care is provided for children and/or people with disabilities provide fertile ground for abuse, and an abuser could be drawn to volunteer for such events to gain opportunity to engage in that type of sin. Background checks can screen for those with a criminal history. Please remember that background checks only eliminate offenders who have been caught previously, so make sure you exercise other cautions (for example, the policy of no volunteer ever being alone with a child) to protect the children in your care.
- How? I won't share our exact form with you because it will be no good to you without an agency to actually do the background check for you. I would suggest calling large churches and children-focused non-profits in your area to find out who they use. And email me if you'd like me to find out who does ours.
- elopement plan (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
- Why and how? See this post in which I describe both.
- One specific detail from this past weekend's respite event: We choose to avoid using the first floor of our building - except to enter the space and enter/exit the playground - so that even the craftiest escapee wouldn't end up in the parking lot. An eloping child ended up in the parking lot one Sunday (with a volunteer in pursuit who caught up to him before he left the sidewalk and entered the actual lot), and that's not something we - or you -wanted to risk happening.
- bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
- Why? People with disabilities may need help with bathroom/diapering need at much older ages than typically developing children.
- How? Once again, you must set the policy that a volunteer tending to bathroom/diaper needs is never alone with a child. This includes in the bathroom. You also should operate in agreement with your church's policies for diapering/toileting younger children for two reasons: (1) some of your volunteers will already be trained on these and (2) it demonstrates respect for other ministry leaders (remember, special needs ministry should complement and not compete with other ministry areas). For us, that means that only women can change diapers, though a man can be the second person present (even if that means they have to assist in the changing process to some degree). This is true also for when a child's clothes need to be changed, as was the case for one child who threw up during last Saturday's event at our church.
- medical professionals for the event
- Why? You want to be proactive so you can rightly react to any emergencies. Also, if you want to be able to administer medication during the event (if, for example, a guest usually takes medicine with dinner and your event includes dinner) or if you want to be able to accept children with feeding tubes or other medical needs, you'll want to have a medical professional.
- How? For us, we had one med team leader on our planning team - an RN (who makes me feel old because I led her Bible study group when she was a senior in high school) - as well as two other RNs who volunteered for the event itself. I know that other churches have hired a nurse or EMT to be present or recruit one or two from outside of their church.
- at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
- Why? Some kids with disabilities won't need one-on-one assistance, but it is wise to provide that so each child will be adequately cared for. You need additional volunteers for non-disabled siblings too.
- How? We brief each one-on-one volunteer on the specific needs of their child. We forgot these cards this time, but we also aim to provide a notecard with basic info on the child; that way I keep the forms on the child with one other leadership team member holding a copy of all forms as well, and the buddy can just have a quick reference version.
- a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
- Why? Kids with disabilities are more likely than other kids to have food allergies, food sensitivities, or other special dietary needs.
- How? We served pepperoni or cheese pizza and apple juice boxes for dinner, and during online registration, parents had the option of selecting "My child can eat the pepperoni or cheese pizza that will be served" or "My child has special dietary needs. I will provide food for him/her." On our check-in spreadsheet, we included this and had our registration team double-check the info and either have the child wear a wristband for their pizza or, for most of our kids with special needs, have the buddy wear the child's wristband. (We just bought the paper wristbands that they use at our state fair.) We used red for stop and green for go: kids who were good to go for pizza had green wristbands (and a matching green sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy), and kids who needed to stop and eat something else had red wristbands (and a matching red sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy). We also, although we didn't have to use it this time, had a designated room in which kids with allergies could eat separately if their allergies were severe enough that eating in the main food room would be unsafe; in that case, we also would have strictly enforced hand-washing before leaving the main food room to limit the spread of those allergens.
- a safe check-in procedure
- Why? During check-in, you need to be able to (a) record who is/isn't there, (b) collect any missing forms, (c) learn any last-minute info, as needed, about the child, (d) communicate to the parents that their child will be safe, and (e) help parents exit while their children head to our respite event area.
- How? Here's our check-in cheat sheet from the event.We did check-in on the first floor, and no parents were allowed upstairs. (If a parent had needed to see our respite area to feel comfortable before leaving their child, that would have been allowed, but only if a leadership team member joined them because parents have not cleared our background checks and other volunteer screening procedures or received training for the event; therefore, they cannot be allowed in our respite area alone.) In the check-in area, we had a team of women I greatly admire, including one mother of an adult with special needs, to meet the families, check them in on the spreadsheet I provided, and direct them. At the med team table, our nurse or I double-checked everything, and we matched up the child and buddy.