Child Check-In
Best Practices
by
By Allen Ratta
The Custodial Care of a Child
When a church conducts child check-in to one of its children’s ministries classes or nursery, something very serious has occurred. The church has taken legal responsibility for the custodial care of a child. This is a BIG deal. There can be severe legal ramifications for a church that fails to exercise due diligence in every aspect of caring for the safety and welfare of a child in its custody. It begins with ensuring that all children’s ministry workers have current background checks. There are churches that have suffered irreparable financial and reputational harm due to failure in this one area. It is critical for a church to have well-written policies in place that that cover every eventuality that might occur during your custody of the child. These policies need to be very detailed and well thought out. Subjects like appropriate and inappropriate physical contact, gender rules, the preparation of snacks with attention to child-specific allergies, and discipline policies need to be addressed. ConnectionPower’s child check in system embeds features that help to easily enforce these policies. For example, allergy notes appear on every child ID/Security badge and photos of approved pickup persons can be viewed online.
Security
Security has become a paramount concern today. Anyone who runs the gauntlet of security at the airport these days is reminded how much our word has changed in this regard. A professional and well-designed child check-in system has become a necessity due to security concerns. Parents increasingly expect an increased level of security in every sized church when it comes to the safety of their children. None of this has to be expensive or technical difficult to pull off. ConnectionPower child check in system allows a church to affordably implement varying levels of security to meet the most demanding standards. They are outlined below.
1. Self Service Child Check In – This configuration of ConnectionPower’s child check in software utilizes what we believe to be the minimum in modern security requirements. Parents can come to a computer, enter a phone number (4 digit or 10) or scan a bar code and check their children into appropriate classes. The parents receive a pickup slip with a unique security code. The children receive a name badge that displays the time and location of their class, and a unique and prominent security code that must match the parent pick-up slip. The matching security code between parent and child cannot be reproduced. The church then organizes the check out process around making sure that proper identification is made between the parent and child’s security codes.
2. Staffed Child Check In – This configuration ConnectionPower’s check-in system utilizes gold screens where visitors can be added into the system on the fly so they receive the same security badges as established attendees. This approach also offers the benefit of elevated customer service for visitors and existing members as church staff members warmly greet them during the check-in process. Another benefit is that church staff can use attached web cams to instantly insert pictures of parents and children into the church database. This is an essential process for the church that wants to utilize ConnectionPower’s check out process described below.
3. Self Service and Staffed Child Check In – Many churches use both processes above with great success. Established attendees use Kiosks configured for Self Service while visitors are directed to a staffed Kiosk. This maintains a more personalized approach for visitors and keeps check-in running at optimal speed and convenience for regular attendees.
4. ConnectionPower’s Check Out System – This is the configuration for maximum child security. It takes longer to check children out but some churches feel that the gains in increased security are worth the delays. With this configuration, parent pick-up slips have a barcode. When the barcode is scanned, the faces of authorized pickup persons with associated children are displayed. This approach requires more volunteer staff that scans the badges, match the faces and approves the parent pickup.
The security of our children is paramount. Whatever security level you choose to utilize, you can do so with the confidence of knowing that you have exercised due diligence to make sure that your children are safe. The one option that is not acceptable is to do nothing in this technological age when it can be done so easily and affordably.
