“Our hope and belief today is that the church is a place where all people will find the unconditional love and care they so desperately need to grow and thrive.”

These are the opening words to the two new Safe Sanctuary policies adopted at the 2008 Session of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference.  While the wording is very similar, there are two distinct abuse prevention policies in place.  One is for local ministry settings of the Conference (chartered churches, fellowships, campus ministries, etc.).  It establishes the expectation that every local ministry setting will have a prevention abuse policy and that it will at least meet the minimum standards set by the annual conference. The other policy applies to “Conference and District Events.”

Here is a listing of the resources you can access by following the links on the bottom of this webpage.

1. The conference-wide policy for local ministry settings.  This document outlines the minimum expectations for the abuse prevention policies of all local ministry settings. 

• If your local ministry setting has an abuse prevention policy in place, please review it in light of the minimum standards to determine if it is in compliance. 
• If your local ministry setting does not have an abuse prevention policy in place, please being the process of developing one, using the minimum standards as a guideline.

2.  Abuse Prevention Policy Template. For those local ministry settings at the beginning stages of developing an abuse prevention policy, this template is offered as an outline for your new policy.  It incorporates the minimum standards and lists the necessary components of an effective abuse prevention policy for your local setting.

3.  The abuse prevention policy for Conference/District events.  This document explains the abuse prevention policy for all events sponsored by Annual Conference or one of its five Districts.  Persons or Ministry Teams responsible for Conference/District events involving children, youth or vulnerable adults must become familiar with this policy and implement it for the event.  It is important that recruited leadership for Conference/District events are oriented to the policy and understand the required procedures.

4. Voluntary Disclosure Form. This form is to be completed by those persons recruited for Conference/District events.  It may also be used “as is” or as a model disclosure form for local ministry settings.

5. Trak-1 Background Check Service. This document will explain how your church can use the background check services of Trak-1. Since our conference is a member of Trak-1, membership rates will apply to provided services. There are links to a price chart and to a customer service agreement which must be completed by your church before you can use Trak-1. The agreement form can be complicated, so the document also includes instructions for completing the agreement form that come directly from Trak-1.

For assistance with the Conference Safe Sanctuary Policies, contact Scott Harkness, Director of Connectional Ministries at scott@umoi.org.