Safe Place Gathering Event

Working with children or youth can be challenging on its own. Throw in families who hold different values or systems of belief, perhaps based on socio-economic or cultural differences, and we have a whole set of new challenges, challenges that many of us are not (yet) prepared for. In this event/gathering, we will spend intentional time discussing a few of the ways that this reality can present some challenges for our ministries, with specific attention to our Safe Place Policy.

Examples of this can include:

• Language barriers impacting degree of communication

• Different values around discipline

• Different caregiving capacities – how do we define neglect?

• Guardians/Parents who are not available or present – how does this impact releasing kids after events or getting permission forms handed in?

Together we will discuss these challenges and more, looking for the opportunities within them as well as the ways we can continue to keep offering a safe place within our churches.

When you register for this event, you will be asked about the top safe place challenge you are facing as a ministry leader. This can be related to our topic of discussion or completely different. For the last portion of our time together, we will choose 3 or 4 of these challenges to use as table discussions, looking for good, better and best ways to engage with them.

Looking forward to seeing you there.