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Abuse and Sexual Harassment Prevention Resources

Introduction

Our churches are intended to be safe, secure spaces for children, youth, and vulnerable adults. Any report of harm breaks our hearts and renews our shared commitment to protect our communities from predators. Thank you for making your way to this site. We are working to maintain it as a centralized, consistently updated resource hub.

Requirements for Your Church

According to CA state law (AB506), HI Chapter 350, Conference policy, insurance (Philadelphia), and best practice, both professionally and pastorally, these are the requirements for your church:

  • Your church must have an Abuse Prevention Policy.
  • Your church must implement the required background checks and abuse prevention training using either Ministry Safe or Safe Gatherings.
  • Your church must implement Livescan fingerprinting background checks. (CA law AB506)
  • Your church must implement the procedures delineated in your Abuse Prevention Policy.
  • Your preschool must be in compliance with licensing.

Who must get a background check, abuse prevention training, and livescan fingerprinting?

  • All Cal-Pac clergy and Lay Persons Assigned, whether appointed/assigned to local churches or to conference staff, district superintendent positions, or extension ministries
  • Camp & Retreat Employees and Volunteers
  • All Church Staff and Volunteers who work with children, youth, and/or vulnerable adults.
  • All Preschool Staff and Volunteers
  • All Staff and Volunteers for Conference-sponsored activities involving children, youth and/or vulnerable adults.
  • All paid staff and volunteers at local churches who work with children, youth, and/or vulnerable adults.

Note: Local church employees who do NOT work with children, youth, or vulnerable adults  must clear the Safe Gatherings online background check, but do not need Livescan fingerprinting.

The Details

Safe Gatherings OR Ministry Safe – Choose One

Your church or ministry must choose one of these online platforms for your background checks and training. If you are already working well with Ministry Safe and wish to continue, please do. Thank you for your diligence in protecting our children, youth, and vulnerable adults.

If you are not already successfully and consistently using Ministry Safe, you’ll want to get started with Safe Gatherings right away.

  • Both offer online applications.
  • Both offer AB506-compliant searches.
  • Both offer AB506-compliant web-based abuse prevention training.
  • Both offer electronic data management for local churches, District offices and the Conference.

 

The Conference used Safe Gatherings regularly until a few years ago, when we switched to Ministry Safe. Our experience has shown that Ministry Safe is more challenging to implement than Safe Gatherings.

 

The main difference is that Safe Gatherings automates most of its functions once your administrator inputs a candidate for employment, staff person or volunteer.

 

Safe Gatherings puts the background check in motion and sends out training reminders until your candidate, staff person or volunteer complies. Safe Gatherings notifies the administrator of compliance and send out a notice of completion to the applicant. If there is a flag on the background check, Safe Gatherings handles the adverse action for you. Safe Gatherings sends applicants and administrators notices when the 3-year renewal time rolls around.

 

Ministry Safe requires church administrators to be proactive about requesting the background checks and sending out training requests until compliance is gained. The system does not automatically kick out reminders or notices. Ministry Safe does not handle adverse action, but instructs the church administrator on how to handle these.

 

Therefore, if your church struggles to keep up with administrative tasks, you will want to sign up with Safe Gatherings.

Each church is already set up in both the Ministry Safe and the Safe Gatherings portals.

  • You can start or switch from one to the other whenever you are ready.
  • Both platforms will be monitored for compliance by the Conference HR Manager and the District Offices. Clergy compliance will be monitored from the Episcopal Office, and Candidates for Commissioning will be monitored by the Board of Ordained Ministry.
  • Charge Conference Form #6: has a box to let the Conference know which system you’ve decided to use.

Here’s a link to a current copy of Charge Conference Form #6 for your reference:

Charge Conference Form #6: Abuse Prevention Policy Verification

Safe Gatherings  – Every 3 Years

www.safegatherings.com

Each church is already set up in Safe Gatherings, you only need to sign up.

A setup form from Safe Gatherings will be available soon.

Once you’re signed up, you’ll have access to training tutorials and live customer support. There is no limit to the number of employees and volunteers that you can add to the portal.

 

Cost

$47 per applicant covers an enhanced criminal history search: address history, 7-year felony/misdemeanor search, county/state and federal levels, Sex Offender Registry/National Criminal Database Search.

Ministry Safe – Every 3 Years

www.ministrysafe.com

Each church is already set up in the Ministry Safe portal. The account has initially been set up with the church’s SPRC chair (or the Senior Pastor) as the administrator.

  • How To Access Ministry Safe (PDF) for instructions on how to access the portal, add users, send training and how to customize your training settings
  • Demo (video)

There is no limit to the number of employees and volunteers that you can add to the portal.

 

Cost

Background checks: $40 per person for Level 1 background checks including:

    • Identity Research
    • Multi-Jurisdictional Search with Sex Offender
    • County of Residence
    • County of Employment
    • Federal Court Nationwide Search
  • For Motor Vehicle Report, extra $10 will be applied per person.

Ministry Safe charges an annual fee of $250/church

Yes – Safe Gatherings has included Policy Builder for all churches in the California-Pacific Annual Conference at no additional cost, even if you are currently using Ministry Safe.

  • Create a policy using one of their custom templates.
  • Complete with required policies.
  • Manage the policies and track who has read and signed off on each policy.

Cal-Pac has also created a sample policy for your use, available at this link.

Livescan is administered by the Department of Justice, and is therefore an entirely separate process from Ministry Safe/Safe Gatherings.

More resources coming soon.

Sexual Harassment Training – Every 2 years

 

Basic training requirements

  • Employers with 5 or more employees must provide two hours of sexual harassment training to supervisors every two years.
  • Must also provide at least one hour of sexual harassment training to non-supervisory employees every two years.

NOTE: This training requirement is for all employees, including clergy, and is separate and distinct from training programs such as Safe Gatherings and Ministry Safe that cover prevention of abuse of children, youth and vulnerable adults . 

 

Training Specifications:

  • Must be interactive
  • Must be at least two hours in length (classroom or e-learning); at least one hour for non-supervisory
  • Must meet certain requirements regarding qualifications of the trainer:
    • Attorney; HR professional; harassment prevention consultant; professor/instructor in law school or university

 

Cal-Pac Conference Requirements

  • For clergy and lay staff at churches, training conducted in English or Spanish must be done through In2vate

In2vate

Inv2vate is administered by Hub International on behalf of Philadelphia Insurance

No cost to the church.

Registration

  • Each church registers with in2vate
  • Administrator at church assigns training to all staff
  • District Office monitors compliance
  • Clergy take the training through their church
  • Only applies to retired clergy if they are working in retirement at a local church
  • For clergy and lay staff at churches, training conducted in Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese or Tagalog may be done through:
  • CRD

(Civil Rights Department)

https://calcivilrights.ca.gov/shpt/

No cost to the church.

For assistance with using the Ministry Safe System:

Ministry Safe Help Desk: 833.737.7233 (Toll Free), support@ministrysafe.com

For assistance with using the Safe Gatherings System:

Safe Gatherings Live Customer Support:  888-241-8258

For questions about insurance coverage and requirements, call the Conference’s insurance broker’s dedicated agents:

HUB International

For questions about individual and church compliance, renewal dates and general inquiries:

District Offices

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