In June 2022, the Arkansas Annual Conference voted to adopt a new policy to create a protective environment in our churches for children, youth, and vulnerable adults (defined as protected persons) and the volunteers who work with them. With this adoption of this new policy, replacing the current ARUMC Safe Sanctuary Policy, comes the opportunity to use the Safe Gatherings online training and background checks system for all churches within the ARUMC Conference.

This new policy requires all appointed clergy, assigned laity and adult chaperones to district and conference events for children and youth to be Safe Gatherings Certified. While not required, the policy strongly recommends that all local churches use the Safe Gatherings Certification process for all of their lay paid staff and for all volunteers who work with children, youth and vulnerable adults.

In addition, this new policy requires all local churches sending groups of children, youth and adult chaperones to district and conference events for children and youth to have a Safe Gatherings policy.  The minimum standards for a Safe Gatherings policy (including certification specifically through Safe Gatherings) can be found on page 6 of the ARUMC Safe Gatherings Policy.  Again, while not required, it is strongly recommended that all local churches have a safety policy in place to create a safe environment for its children, youth, vulnerable adults and the volunteers who work with these groups.

Here is some helpful information to know as your church begins using Safe Gatherings:

• All ARUMC local churches should have your church administrator or a clergy person contact Safe Gatherings at 888-241-8258 to set up your church’s account. Be prepared to give Safe Gatherings the name(s) of those who will be administrators of the Safe Gatherings account for your church. These persons can be an office administrator, admin assistant, youth ministry worker, children’s ministry worker, etc. Please note that for clergy serving at multiple churches or administrators that work for multiple churches, this dashboard must be set up for each individual church.
• All appointed clergy, assigned laity and local church volunteers can be Safe Gatherings approved at NO COST to the local church, these will be covered by the Arkansas Conference.
• All lay PAID employees of local churches can be Safe Gatherings approved at the expense of the local church.
• While the registration and application process should take 30-45 minutes to complete and the training process should take approximately 2 hours to complete (this can be done in more than one sitting), once you’ve completed all required sections, the verification and approval process can take 7 to 14 days. Therefore, to ensure your certification is complete please begin the process in plenty of time to meet any deadlines for your local church.
  
• For a list of information you should be prepared to have in order to answer the application questions, click here.