MCC | Plan for safety

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Plan for Personal Safety

If you or your family is afraid of being hurt, making a safety plan is one way that you can work at making sure of your safety. This allows you to prepare in advance for the possibility of avoiding violence.

Check out www.shelternet.ca to develop your own safety plan or for ideas of where to go for help.

Make a list of the people who your intuition tells you are kind, smart and supportive. It might be a neighbour, teacher, doctor, or clergy. These are people you can turn to in case of emergency.

Sources of help

Look for the following in the front pages of your local phone book:

911
Police
Domestic Violence Shelters
Rape Crisis Centres
Victim Assistance programs
Women's Resource Centre
Community Services

Safety audit for congregations and groups

Increasingly, churches need to ensure that incidents of abuse/molestation cannot occur in their congregation. Questioning volunteers has been seen as distasteful, and as churches, we certainly do not want to offend anyone who would want to volunteer with us. Yet not being suspicious is precisely what makes the church susceptible to incidents of abuse.

Lack of screening, trusting character, opportunity for unsupervised close personal contact between adults and children, access to potential victims in an atmosphere of trust, and a need for adequate help for running programs are all features which make churches susceptible to incidents of abuse.

Remember

Guidelines of protection for staff and volunteers working with children
Policy needs for:
- Screening all employees and volunteers working with children or youth
- Training for all staff working with children or youth on child sexual abuse/church and government policies pertaining to child abuse including reporting obligations
A safety audit which provides a way to understand how safe your environment is or feels so that steps can be taken to reduce fear and vulnerability for your group. It can be used to improve neighbourhood safety and safety in and around our churches and community. A safety audit helps people take charge on practical issues to make communities better.

Protection suggestions for staff and volunteers

Just as we need to make sure our children and others are safe in our churches, so too we need to ensure the safety of our staff and volunteers.

Suggested guidelines

Team up with other adult staff when counselling minors
Meet in public places or leave doors open
Never meet one-on-one behind closed doors
Never have "secret" meetings with minors
Be accountable
Be gender sensitive
Have more than one adult present when changing children's clothing or going to the bathroom
Keep physical contact to a minimum
Never check a child for injuries under clothing without another adult present

Professional Misconduct

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Mennonite Central Committee