Update: Sexual Harassment Prevention training provided by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is available in English, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean at www.dfeh.ca.gov/shpt/.

As previously announced, a law enacted in September 2018 expands the requirements for mandatory sexual harassment prevention training. California law now requires all employers of 5 or more employees to provide 1 hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to non-supervisory employees and 2 hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to supervisors and managers once every two years. The law requires the training to include practical examples of harassment based on gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation. The deadline for employers to have training completed for all existing employees is January 1, 2021.

Information on training resources, including the FREE online training now available through the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH), is below.

The training must meet certain criteria. It can be either classroom or online training, but it must be interactive, and the trainer must have certain qualifications, ie: be an attorney, an HR professional, a harassment prevention consultant, or a professor in a law school or university.

There are many options for training, including the following:

• Department of Fair Employment & Housing (DFEH) no-cost online training course now available. Here is a link to the DFEH website containing details about their free, user-friendly training that meets all requirements for both supervisory and non-supervisory training. https://www.dfeh.ca.gov/shpt/
• Hub International and Philadelphia Insurance Co. are working together to bring online Sexual Harassment Prevention training to our churches at no cost, in English and Spanish. The training has been designed and provided by In2vate, LLC, specifically for our churches. Call Lizet Hernandez (310) 568-5986 or Eva Litvinova (310) 568-5965 at Hub International to be set up as an Administrator to be able to register employees for the training.
• CongregationU, a sister company to Safe Gatherings, has revised their online sexual harassment training to be in compliance with California’s new requirements, and they are offering it to our churches at a discounted price. All churches will receive a notice directly from CongregationU about this option available to them, and they can sign up if they would like. Here is a link to the “Get Started” page on the CongregationU website, where the church may set up an account: https://congregationu.com/get-started/. And here is a link to pricing information for the various courses. Please note that CongregationU is offering a 20% discount on the courses to the churches in Cal-Pac Conference, so you should calculate 20% off the prices you see on the chart: https://d2b9zz27h4gtbo.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Course-Pricing-page-Feb-2019.pdf

For clarification, this legally-mandated training on the topic of workplace sexual and other harassment prevention is separate and distinct from abuse prevention programs such as Safe Gatherings and Safe Sanctuaries, which are focused on prevention of abuse of children, youth and vulnerable adults in the religious environment.

For general questions about this announcement, you may contact Jan Hanson, Director of Human Resources, at jhanson@calpacumc.org. Please consult with legal counsel for questions regarding specific requirements and applicability for your church.

Here are links to more details about this new law, as well as resources provided by the Department of Fair Employment and Housing:

DFEH Sexual Harassment Prevention Training and S.B. 1343 FAQs

DFEH Sexual Harassment and Abusive Conduct Prevention Training Toolkit