CHURCH BOARD GUIDE TO A CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE PREVENTION POLICY


For many churches, the decision whether or not to conduct the check will depend upon the scope of


the volunteer’s service and


responsibilities, and the feasibility of conducting checks on possibly hundreds of volunteers who will serve only a few hours each year, and in positions that the church views as being low risk. No simple answer exists to this concern. Each church must consider its own programs, and should be able to defend whatever actions it takes based upon a standard of reasonable care. Risks increase when volunteers have fre- quent, unsupervised access to children. If a church decides that some volunteer positions do not warrant this level of screening, that evalua- tion and its defense should be grounded in a risk management philos- ophy that can be explained and defended as reasonable if called upon to do so before a jury. A summary of factors regarding whether to do criminal records check on volunteers includes the following:


Factors suggesting the need for criminal records check • extended one-on-one contact with minors • frequent and unsupervised contact with minors


Factors suggesting that a check may not be needed • settings with multiple adults present • infrequent, indirect contact with minors, or contact in group settings


Minimally, churches should have volunteers complete the written


application, conduct reference checks, do a personal interview, and follow the threshold requirements for volunteer service. This helps establish a basis for reasonable care. But criminal records checks will reduce risk even more. It is worth noting that a growing number of youth-serving charities are performing criminal records checks on vol- unteers, and this suggests that the courts one day may conclude that


“reasonable care” in the selection of volunteer youth workers necessi- tates criminal records checks.


25


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74