Recent news reports highlight the need for every congregation to have an abuse-prevention policy in place. It is not enough to report and punish. A good policy will seek to prevent the abuse in the first place. Having such a policy in place may prevent the church from facing the feeding frenzy of the press that we have seen recently. The press not only reports the allegations and the church response; they also consider it their right to dictate to the church how it should minister to the accused as well as the accuser.

New Hope Christian Church adopted its Abuse Prevention Policy, based on guidelines and resources provided by our insurance company, and adapted to fit our particular needs. The full policy can be found in our Policies and Procedures Manual.

Purpose of the Policy

Obviously we do not suspect our evangelist, elders, teachers or anyone else working with our children of being the kind of person who would abuse our children. However, there are sexual predators out there in the world, and they often attend churches in order to get access to children. Therefore, the first purpose of our policy is to protect our children from abuse .

Without proper safeguards, there is often nothing that the accused can do to counter allegations. Therefore, the second purpose of our policy is to protect our workers .

There are also unscrupulous people who will not hesitate to sue a church. Therefore, the third purpose of our policy is to protect our church from litigation .

Screening and Selection

All new children’s workers must go through a screening process which includes an interview, background checks, orientation in abuse prevention, and a legally binding agreement to uphold all policies of the church.

No one will be allowed to work with our children until establishing a 75% attendance rate for six months.

No one with a criminal record of physical or sexual abuse will be allowed to work with our children. This restriction does not mean that people cannot change or that such behavior cannot be forgiven–it simply means that we will not take any chances with our children.

Training

All workers must go through the initial abuse-prevention training , and they must review our policy annually . This requirement does not mean that we do not trust these workers. Training includes all aspects of our policy, including what to do when abuse is suspected by a fellow-worker or by someone else.

Supervision

In most cases, no worker is to be alone with a child (other than his or her own). Even during group activities, at least two adults are to be present. The policy recognizes some situations when this is not practical, but there are safeguards built in to those situations as well.

Reporting

All suspected abuse is to be reported to the proper authorities . (The policy even tells what to do when the person is not certain whether the case should be reported.) In addition, any such case is to be reported to the church leaders–but not as a substitute for reporting to the authorities.

Responding

When abuse is reported, the policy lays out the details of how the church is to respond. Church leaders, although always expected to report to and cooperate with authorities, are not given the option of deciding whether the reported abuse is true.

No policy is fool-proof, but we believe that adherence to this policy will protect our children, our workers, and our public image.

(The full policy is available upon request.)