An important step in working towards making your ministry safer is writing a Safe Ministry Policy. This policy should clearly outline your ministry’s aims and principals for providing a safe ministry, as well as the expectations for people who will be leading in your ministry. You can access a sample policy, endorsed by Ansvar, from your Safe Ministry Check Dashboard. The policy you write should be reviewed regularly to make sure it is relevant and up to date, and it should be accessible to the people who are in your ministry. Having an easily accessible Safe Ministry Policy communicates to your people that your ministry takes their safety seriously and that risky behaviour will be acted on.
There are a couple of ways to make your policy accessible. Within Safe Ministry Check you can upload an online copy of your policy that will be emailed to everyone who completes the leaders course. To put your policy online, you could use your church website to host a version that is either publicly accessible or only accessible to people you give the link to. Using Dropbox to host the file gives you the ability to send a link to the document to anyone who needs it. As well as online options, you could keep paper copies on hand to give to people as they join your church or enrol kids in your programs.