What Would You Do?

Thursday, April 18th, 2019

Imagine this scenario: You are the children’s ministry director and it’s Thursday morning before a very busy church weekend. You check your volunteer schedule and realize that one of your volunteers, Margaret, who is scheduled to work the church nursery on Sunday, hasn’t received her Safe Gatherings approval. Margaret started her application two weeks ago but hasn’t finished her online training. In addition, her background check is pending confirmation because her date of birth wasn’t provided.

At this point it seems unlikely that Margaret will receive approval before Sunday. In her time slot, you see that Margaret will be working with two other volunteers who are Safe Gatherings approved. What do you do?

The answer: It’s OK for Margaret to volunteer as long as there are two other individuals with Safe Gatherings approval in the nursery at all times.

In the future, it’s a good idea to remind all volunteers to allow plenty of time to complete their Safe Gatherings application, background check and training. It can be a very smooth and quick process, but little details can delay an application. That’s why it’s always good for the applicant to login to their account regularly to check the status of their application.