Yay. 
Hello everybody. 
I'm Reverend Sunshine Jeremiah Wolf. 
I serve as the regional lead for our Pacific Western region. 
It is lovely to see all of you here today. 
invite you to say in the chat um who you are, where you're from, your preferred pronouns, and if you would like an object that you have used to help you feel or be safe. 
Um today's agenda we're going to be uh doing some facilitator intros and a chalice lighting and then we will get into some conversations about like the foundations of understanding safety. 
Some recommendations for supporting safety particularly for all ages, youth and children. 
Um some recommended safety policies when more help is needed like where you might go and where you might find those resources. 
and then a little bit of reflection, feedback and closing and all of that in one hour. 
So with that, feel free to relax and know that you don't need to take notes. 
We will be sharing some of this information like slides and other things. 
So you don't have to hold on to that unless that is something that helps you center. 
If you're like, I have to knit to listen or I have to take notes, you do you. 
Um we'll be dropping links into the chat um with various information and other pieces that you need. 
And we are recording this and any video we share publicly will only include the video of the facilitators, not the participants. 
All right. 
And so with that, I'm going to pass it

to our fearless leader, Lauren. 
Thanks, sunshine, and welcome everybody. 
My name is Lauren Wyth. 
I'll introduce myself in a little bit more detail in just a moment. 
But as we're just kind of getting started, I just want to welcome you and give you a little bit of a idea of what we'll be doing in the overall time that we're together. 
Um, just to let you know that this time, this hour will be an overview of the topic of child and youth safety in Yuyu communities. 
But anybody who's been in this work for any amount of time will find it maybe a little amusing that we have 60 minutes to do that, right? Because this conversation about how we take care of children and youth's safety in our communities is so nuanced and so complicated and could easily fill a dayong workshop. 
And we're going to touch what we can in these 60 minutes. 
So just the complexity of this is um highlighted by a couple of examples um here right. 
So we we for example might say that we want a rich multi-generational network of support for our children and youth. 
And we might also say that we want our children and youth connected with adults who have been screened and vetted and trained. 
Right? So, we want these multigenerational spaces in our congregations and yet we want the adults who are interacting with our children and youth to be vetted and screened. 
We can't have exactly all of both of those things all the time. 
We want to intervene when a youth is struggling. 
Of course, we do. 
We want to help. 
We want to show up for our youth in the ways that we can. 
Um, and we want to honor their privacy and give them their space, right? So, how do we hold those two dynam things in dynamic tension? And here's a third example. 
We want to support parents in keeping their kids safe. 
And different parents have different ideas about what responsibilities and freedoms their kids should have at different ages. 
So, there's not one definition of what it means to keep our kids safe. 
We all have different ideas about that. 
Things aren't just one-sizefits-all. 
Context matters and identities matter and individual stories matter, too. 
So, embracing the complexity is part of what good ministry with children, youth, and families requires of us. 
So, with all that in mind, of course, there are conversations we won't be able to get to this evening. 
And you may have come with a particular situation you're bringing that you hope will be addressed and we might not be able to get into the specifics of what what is happening in your congregation or in somebody else's. 
We what we want you to come away from this time knowing for sure is that the UUA has staff who are available to be in conversation with you outside the space and beyond. 
Right? So, if you have a particular situation that you're wanting to have someone think through with you, if you're wanting some feedback or different perspectives on it, we are here for that. 
We are here for those individual conversations and we hope that you will reach out to us and ask for more conversation after this gathering. 
We also hope that you'll come away with some new ideas and some clarity um from our time together. 
So I'm going to introduce myself now and then I'm going to invite Sam to introduce themsel after me and we all of us who are here from UUA staff facilitating in some way or another this evening will um introduce ourselves to you. 
So, my name is Lauren Wyth and my pron pronouns are she or they and I serve as a congregational life consultant with the Mid America region um where I am also the faith development specialist for um our region. 
And before this work, I served for uh nearly a dozen years in a congregational setting as the director of children, youth, and family ministries in a large congregation here in Minneapolis where I still reside. 
I'm a white person in my mid50s with wavy blondish brown hair and I'm wearing tortois shell glasses tonight and a blue plaid flannel shirt. 
And over my shoulder on one side is a chalice and on the other side is a bulletin board with our yuyu values and some other very yuyu things. 
Um and um I'm going to share with you one thing that I've used to keep myself or others safe to just kind of get us in this mindset. 
And a thing that I use to keep myself safe when it starts to warm up here in the Midwest, which it slowly is, is the helmet that I wear when I ride my little scooter around town all summer. 
And with that, I pass it to you, Sam. 
Hi, everyone. 
Good evening. 
I think it's evening in all of our time zones. 
Thank you so much for joining us. 
My name is Sam K. 
Pearl. 
I use the genderneutral pronouns, they, them, and theirs. 
I serve as congregational life field staff um as a primary contact in the Pacific West region and I also do work supporting religious education professionals and family ministries and programs throughout our region. 
I am a white middle-aged person with brown hair that's pulled back into a ponytail, thick eyebrows and an oval face with a septum piercing in my nose, and I have a virtual background of a sunflower behind me this evening. 
Um, I reside on Alona Territory in what is currently called Oakland, California. 
And one item that I use to keep myself and my kiddo safe are rocks on our altar that are grounding and safety making for us. 
It is good to be together tonight. 
All right. 
Hi, I'm Sunshine Jeremiah Wolf. 
I serve as regional lead of the Pacific Western based in Tempe, Arizona, which is just south of Phoenix. 
Um, my pronouns are they, them, theirs, or any non-gender specific pronoun that you know and are comfortable with. 
I'm a short, fat, light-skinned, multi-racial human with short brown hair, salt and pepper beard and mustache. 
I'm wearing wire rim glasses, a black button-down shirt. 
Um, and behind me is a gray background with the UUA like multicolored rainbow bar at the bottom. 
Uh, one item that I've used to keep me safe or others safe is actually name tag. 
Um, wearing a name tag lets folks know that I'm a part of the community, that I've talked to someone in the community, and that I'm not um just roaming around in places that I shouldn't be. 
It gives folks a sense of um information if anything were to happen to me as well. 
So, it's a useful tool and something that I encourage everybody to carry with them when they're in intentional communities. 
I think that's oh, and one line why I'm facilitating. 
I started as a religious educator in Tucson, Arizona and utilized my riskmanagement training from working with the homeless in that congregation and have been doing it ever since and I love doing this work. 
Um, also we have with us tonight Chanel Gomez who is our um, event uh, and tech host from Congregational Life. 
Over to you Evan. 
Hi, my name is Evan Carville Zemer. 
current congregational life UA role is as the developmental lead in the New England region. 
I started on congregational life back in the Ohio Meville and St. 
Lawrence districts and my role was um youth and young adult ministry. 
My pronouns are um they them or any any pronoun. 
I I'm in western Massachusetts. 
I'm a light-skinned person with short dark hair. 
I'm wearing a black um zip up. 
Um and in the background of my home office, you can see a um mobile on one side and there's a picture on the wall over there. 
Um an item that I have used to keep myself safe includes a compass and a map. 
Um if you have a chalice with you and you'd like to grab it to light it with us, I invite you to do so. 
Now, if you do not have a physical chalice, but you would still like to partake in the ritual, I invite you to click react and search through the available emojis. 
You can send a fire of flame up so that we can light our chalice together. 
Our chalice lighting practice this evening is a body scan that I am going to invite you all into. 
So, if you want to take a moment to find your feet on the ground or an otherwise comfortable position to close your eyes or take a soft gaze, maybe even glancing away from the screen for this moment towards a safety or calming item around you, maybe your chalice itself. 
And just firstly noticing your breath. 
Not changing it. 
Just making an observation on this inhale. 
And this next exhale. 
Go ahead and notice your temples, how they're feeling. 
See if as you exhale if you can relax them. 
Notice any sensation of your temples moving. 
And this next breath, leaning into your jaw, letting that relax. 
On your next exhale, moving into your mouth, letting your tongue fall from the roof of your mouth to your lower teeth.

And just breathing on your own here. 
Let yourself sink into your shoulders. 
Let your shoulders lower as your neck rises, creating a little space in your body for more breath. 
Go ahead and check in with your chest, your lungs, your ribs, your miraculous heartbeat. 
Moving down, check in with your torso. 
Check in with your gut. 
Your next breath. 
Feel your gut rise and fall. 
Finding conversations around safety. 
Our gut can be our primary guide, our north star. 
Our bodies can tell us so much. 
Listen. 
Listen, listen.

And in your next couple breaths, you can go ahead and open your eyes, come back to center, come back to screen. 
I invite you for the rest of our time together to stay checking in with your body tonight. 
Tend to it as you need to. 
We welcome cameras on and off. 
We welcome body movement and stretching, eating, drinking water, tending to yourself as you need. 
Please be as you are

and

we can go ahead and take the next slide. 
Okay. 
So our congregation safety is built within containers meaning various aspects of our values, polity, policy, practices and culture which all kind of hold or contain the space for safety to flourish. 
Um so we have to have these safety containers in place for the rest to grow. 
Um and I kind of present them to you tonight in the following container framework. 
So we have of course our covenant, how we agree to be in space and relationship with one another. 
How we agree to keep each other safe and growing and faithful. 
We have covenants with our families who are part of our programs. 
Sometimes we have religious education covenants. 
Um sometimes as volunteers you sign covenants with your religious education professional. 
Then we have congregational covenants. 
um as well. 
Communication is a real cornerstone. 
Communication builds trust and transparency and allows for of opt-in consent for families and kids to know what's happening in their programs. 
We have the container of our teams. 
Most of you all are religious education are on religious education teams. 
So you have um your religious education professional and each other to be doing this um culture building culture changing work with. 
We have training trainings like this ourselves and others um to stay current and always growing around best practices. 
Um and I can go ahead and get next slide now. 
Um we have uh abuse perfection abuse prevention in the form of intentionally normalizing um anti-abuse practices. 
Uh our whole lives curricula itself is abuse prevention. 
Some of our safety policies such as two adults at all times is active abuse prevention. 
Um so it may not be something that we think about daily but is built into our fabric and the operations of our classrooms. 
Um, our values help keep us safe. 
They're reminders of how we aspire to be together. 
If we find that in our actions or our policies, our responses to conflict or ch or change are not in line with our shared values, that can always be a sign that we have some work to do on our safety containers. 
And last, because it is large and the focus of this evening, we have policies. 
Um, we're guided by the UUA's safety policies and safety policy recommendations, which are sharing with you tonight. 
Some religious education professional networks known as Laras. 
Some chapters have geographic clusters policies um in place that member congregations share. 
Your congregations eats to have insurance company policies that outline some safety tidbits um and expectations as well. 
Tonight we're going to cover the UUA um or the Unitarian Universalist Association's policy recommendations. 
Um and you can always check with your regional staff and Larita leadership about our regional policies, their Loretta chapter policies. 
You can check with your religious education professional about your board of directors insurance um policies and pieces and all of your congregational safety pieces that are relevant to your um role um in volunteering in your RE programs. 
So today is more than a tow dip and less than a deep dive into our recommended uh policies for you child and youth safety. 
Um you can go as deep as you want. 
We're going to share a whole host of resources with you and you can have this recording for now and beyond our time together. 
Um, but just note that today is a calf deep overview of essentials.

I love that. 
I love that calf deep overview of essentials. 
So if you have if you have dipped into this material before this will be a lot of review likely but for myself I've been at this work for a long time and I still find it helpful to go back to the fundamentals. 
So that's what we'll be doing um for this next chunk of time. 
I'm going to start us off by introducing y'all to the UUA's recommendations for policies and procedures that you might have with all ages of children and youth in your congregation. 
Um, we're dropping a link to a UUA web page titled safety for religious education and children in the chat for you. 
And at this web page, you can learn from suggested practices and industry standards. 
The UUA has developed recommendations for congregations to keep children safer from harm. 
So, if you arrived looking for information about what goes in a strong child and youth safety policy, this is a really great starting place. 
You can review a list of issues. 
That's what you are noticing here on the slide that you'll want to be sure you've thought about and discussed with your team. 
You'll and then if you're on the web page, you can click through to find more ideas about how um to start um writing uh and talking about what your policies and practices are going to be in your congregation if you don't already have that in place. 
There's also a link at that same um in that same chat that was just shared to a safety assessment for ministry with children that came from the interim religious education blog um which you might even want to work through with others at your congregation. 
So I'm going to lift up what I think are some important highlights from this resource from this web page but I also want to crowdsource a little bit on the side on this one. 
So, if you've adopted a policy or practice in one of the areas listed here, and I'll go through them in a minute for those of you who are listening, um, if you've adopted a policy or a practice in one of these areas that really serves your congregation, go ahead, feel free to drop it in the chat. 
Okay. 
So, um, one of the areas here is hiring and screening, right? that we ought to have good um policy about how we hire and screen the folks who are going to work with children and youth in our congregations. 
Some of the questions you'll be encouraged to think through are, hey, do you require an application of everybody? And do you do reference checks of everybody who's going to be working with children and youth? And if so, how many reference checks do you do for each applicant? um for staff and volunteers uh alike, do you do background checks? And how often do you do those? And how do you do those? What company or processes do you do you use? If somebody were to have a concern about one of the folks working with children and youth, what would be the way that they could raise that concern? And if need be, how would someone be removed from serving in this capacity in your congregation? Uh what kind of training do people receive who are in this important role in your congregation? What kind of supervision do they receive? What kind of training in particular about abuse prevention do your volunteers and staff receive? And what kind of practices do you have to reduce the risk of abuse happening in your congregation? Are two unrelated adults always present when children and youth are in the room? That's a good recommended policy from the UUA. 
Is there never one adult alone with children or youth? Are children never left alone without supervision at all? These are all policies that you'll find as recommendations through this page. 
There's also a whole chunk of questions that are about um what kind of information is shared with uh from the adults who care for from the parents and caregivers of children who are participating in your program. 
What kinds of information do you collect from them in order to have the information that you need in order to care for their children well and safely? Are you documenting and have a process around food allergies and special medical needs? Um, how are you making sure that volunteers have that information when they're caring for a child who um who has a documented need? Um, and what information are families receiving so they know what the policies are and can give informed consent for their child's participation? Do they know about your check-in and checkout processes? Do they have an opportunity to let you know who can pick their child up? and and do they know what you will do if they don't pick their child up from programming on time? Um, do you have specific guidance for younger kids on bathroom and diapering practices and are you sharing that information with the parents and caregivers? You probably if you have youth as child care providers need to have some good um written policy about what age of youth can serve as a child care provider. 
and um how do you ensure that they have supervision that adults are always present? So keep in mind that there is not one right policy or set of policies that works for every congregation. 
And so your UUA doesn't hand out a a policy that we say you need to adopt for your congregation. 
Instead, we provide you with resources to review and empower you to have the conversations and make the decisions you need to make about what will work in your context. 
But that said, the recommendations provided by the UUA are designed to be relevant in a variety of settings and are worthy of consideration and conversation in your congregation. 
Here I am. 
I had attempted to ask the cats not to come, but They they figured out a way to get through. 
So, yes, I'm here with my gray cat. 
Um um so this is a set of recommendations for youth. 
You'll see there's um overlap um with the recommendations for all ages. 
It is a another page besides the children and youth one. 
Um but each of these areas are slightly different when we're talking about grades um 6 through 12. 
So, just some different aspects. 
And so, it's worth looking at this one when you're thinking about your older um your older kids, your youth. 
And I'm not going to go into a lot of detail. 
I'll let you read that. 
What I do want to talk about is um a couple of them in further depth. 
Can I have the next slide, please? Thanks. 
Um so, we'll start with this age range. 
We do have a recommendation of some specific age ranges. 
grades six through eight, 9 to 12 or a three-year age range grade like 8 to 10 um grades. 
This isn't about like children's chapel on a Sunday morning or an all ages social justice project. 
This is about when there is age segregated age separated classrooms and um you're doing a youth specific program. 
Why people ask us why do we recommend this? Um and there's a few reasons and some hard learning. 
There's some big developmental differences across this age span. 
Um though sometimes um youth of different ages can look like the same age because their bodies become adult at different rates but they are not psychologically always ready for treatment as as older youth even if they look older. 
What we have found though is that there's um friendships developed inside the program unlike say a K6 age range where those those younger kids are not going home and texting each other or getting on FaceTime or meeting up somewhere. 
Youth are forming important friendships in our programs and they are often connecting outside of our programs. 
So, if we introduce them as peers, they're going to continue a peer relationship even across developmental differences. 
And sometimes our older youth are less aware they're older or um they just connect with the younger youth or some younger youth really love being peers with the older youth and that can lead to harm has led to harm. 
Yes, sexual is one of the areas that has led to harm, but also just an emotional boundary of younger youth realizing suddenly I am providing emotional support for someone who's going through things I'm not ready to think about and it's harder to say no to an older an older youth. 
So if you have a smaller program and you're like whoa we just couldn't do that UUA like you're telling us something that's impossible. 
Invite you to think about how you can create ways of reducing the impact on younger youth and explicitly create some boundaries and learning so the older youth are understanding that they're older. 
I have two examples. 
One example is an overnight program where um everybody participates during the day and the middle schoolers either go home or their overnight is in a separate building behind some locked doors. 
So those overnight programs can be supervised separately with um different expectations even but different levels of support and they're not socializing all night. 
um another example that um I want to um share with you. 
So let me share with you first the 14. 
So the 14 best practices are in the in the chat. 
And then there's an example of a conversation that when we as UUA have events we have with the older youth, the 18 bridging youth, cuz there's almost nowhere in their lives where someone says to them, "Hey, the families of younger youth are going to have a different perception of you now. 
Hey, there's a power difference here. 
Hey, there's some legal differences." So, it's a harm reduction to have that conversation out loud and it helps remind them that they are actually older and that that is different. 
We also have um uh examples of guidance on overnights. 
So, we go into some detail on the website. 
Some sleeping guidance um like not sharing covers like visible floor space between youth so that it's easier to supervise. 
Our guidance is awake adults who who circulate in pairs. 
Again, we're like not leaving an adult alone, right? So, a pair of adults circulate to just check that everything's all right. 
Um or if you have a strong covenant with your youth, um everybody goes to sleep and the adults wake up at particular random time just to check on things. 
And this includes clear guidance on where to be. 
So, if part of our covenant is we're creating safety together, we we're talking to the youth about either being in the sleeping space or between the sleeping space and the bathroom if you have to. 
But this isn't a time we're hanging out in the sanctuary. 
That is outside of the bounds of how safety can be created together. 
That expectation allows you to, if you have youth who wander away at night, to start right there with covenant. 
You don't have to catch them at anything. 
That's actually not the point. 
The point is that we need um ways of being together that we know will create safety and medication policy. 
In most of our other programs, we are not um thinking much about the medication that our youth take there or our kids. 
The parents give it in the morning or they have it with them. 
You might have EpiPens on Sunday morning, but that's a sort of a one kind of case. 
But if you have an overnight, you will have youth who take medication before bed, at breakfast, and you need a way of managing that. 
That can include the adults holding on to the medication, sometimes in locked containers or um locker and making it available to the youth at the right times to take it. 
If you do not have a trained medical professional with the appropriate license to administer medication, you should not be administering it. 
You are making it available to the youth at the time they need to take it per the permission forms that your families have provided you with. 
And your form might give some um permission for keeping asthma inhaler, epien, that kind of thing with them at all times. 
Whatever other medications that the family thinks the youth should have with them and they're okay having um there's multiple reasons for this um including keeping the medication safe and keeping the youth safe and you've got a range of medication, a range of youth, so you should be managing that.

Can I have my next slide please? So areas that um your rules with youth should cover, they should definitely cover consent. 
Um we're not having sexual activity in the program, but we should be consenting to shoulder mishawas if you want that. 
You should be consenting to hugs. 
We should be consenting to photographs. 
Um lots of opportunities for youth to be thinking about how am I saying yes or no to what my body is doing right now? And this is life skill um for our youth to have space where they get to say yes or no and be heard. 
And that's the expectation. 
We should be talking to the youth about following the safety policies. 
With the younger younger kids, you don't really have this conversation out loud with the kindergarteners, but the youth need to know what the safety policies are and their role in helping guide the group in those safety policies. 
This is part of what makes the unsafe adult stand out. 
If the youth know what the guidance is and there's adults not following it, that will stand out to your youth and they'll they'll come to you. 
So, they should particularly understand, as I was talking about staying in sleeping areas, they should also know that your expectation as a congregation is the adult is never alone with the youth and that includes online. 
It is not safe behavior for our um adults whether volunteer or paid to be creating online um private spaces with youth such as texting. 
So what you model as a safe adult, as a religious educator, as a volunteer is bringing another adult into those online conversations so you're all you're never alone. 
that helps the youth notice when an adult is creating an unsafe online space and not leaving an event like you can't check yourself out of the event. 
We need to know when you're going and have the um family sign off there. 
And you'll have other safety policies you'll want your youth to be aware of. 
Your rules should also include no sexual behavior. 
And that can take some conversation about what is sexual behavior? What are we talking about here? Why are we talking about it? It's exclusive. 
Um, yes. 
And where's the line? That is an interesting conversation. 
I worked with a youth community. 
They ended up um saying sexual behavior was touched with the intent to arouse was the definition we got to. 
Um, one of your rules should include misuse of medication, including um substances that are not prescribed to them, including things that aren't legal for our teenagers, including vapes. 
And you might have a teen who's like, "Well, this isn't a nicotine vape." It's way easier to have no vapes than try to figure out which vape has what in it. 
And I speak from experience and no violence, weapons, harassment, that kind of um that kind of safe space as well. 
Could I have my next slide, please? So, how do we talk about these rules with youth? We want to create a covenant with youth, how they treat each other, but these are really rules we're bringing in. 
Um, so here's some things that I've learned. 
um youth respond really well to honesty and the real reasons. 
So if the reason is there's space between youth when they're sleeping. 
It's so that it's um harder to have sexual activity including like flopping around in your sleep and touching someone um that you didn't mean to touch like you can't consent while you're sleeping that give them that information that really really helps when we're real with them. 
Youth really want to protect other youth. 
So for instance, many youth do not think that they are going to violate someone else's consent and they think they're really good at saying no, but they know that other youth struggle with those things. 
So if we say no sexual behavior within our program because we want this to be a safe space, we really don't want anyone to have a harmful experience of non-consensual sexual touch here because this is a safe sacred space and it does a lot of damage. 
When that happens in a safe, sacred space and if everybody um commits to not having this be a space where we engage in sexual behavior, it creates a safer space for everyone. 
That is way more likely to help youth commit than telling them just don't do it. 
They want to protect each other. 
It's also important for them to understand that the rules are a covenant with the family, the congregational leadership, and the insurance company. 
I will say to youth, things can be renegotiated, but we're going to have to renegotiate with all these people, too. 
So, let's have a conversation about what's bugging you, what you wish were different. 
I'll tell you why the rules are what they are, and if we can find a way to meet the reason and what you're talking about, we'll go renegotiate it with these folks. 
I'm fine with that. 
So, but they need to know that the parties to the rules are not just you, the adult in the room, but all these other bodies. 
Um, please look up the laws in your state around sexing, sending no images, and sexual contact between those over 18 and under 18 or sometimes between under 18 with an age gap. 
This is harm reduction, so you can share it with your youth. 
And you especially want to share it with your youth if you realize you might, as a mandated reporter, have to report something that the youth tell you. 
Um, we have states where more than a 2-year age gap is a mandated report. 
So, we want our youth to know that before they share with us the um glorious relationship they're having with their partner who is um you know 25 months older than them. 
We want them to be able to know what they're revealing and make good choices for themselves about what legal risks they take. 
And in all of this, it's important to say over and over again that sexual exploration is a healthy part of adolescence. 
That is not something that we are trying to discourage. 
It's why we have owl. 
We know that many teens are ready to engage in some form of sexual exploration. 
We provide them with the information to do that in a healthier way. 
It just can't be part of our program in our religious community for all these reasons I've just been talking about. 
And then if you have youth leaders who are ready to talk about some of this with you, like they understand and they have their own reasons and you have them help lead the conversation, also really helps the younger youth get on board with the expectations. 
So we, this is Sam again, Sam Krell. 
Um, we just discussed what should be in your congregation's child and youth safety policies. 
And again, child is sort of like 0 to 12ish. 
Youth is like 13 to 17ish. 
Um, and shared resources for getting those policies written and on hand. 
Also, you know, make sure to note that everyone on the team should also know where these policies live and that they're discussed and updated um relatively regularly as well. 
Um I'm going to touch here on some additional considerations, what I kind of like to call the odds and ends. 
Um so, first and foremost, shared events. 
Obviously, when you have kids in your program, their parents have signed on, their parents and guardians have signed on to their like your safety policies. 
And so if you have um events that are multicongregation or multi-sight such as youth conferences, those need safety policies that are governing the event where congregations um with all of their own safety policies have agreed to one shared event policy that is um given to families so that everyone is opting into that known safety policy. 
Um, if you are having an event that you want the UUA and specifically your region to endorse and promote that event, like in order for it to go into our newsletters and um us to include the registration link and things um it does uh need to get given to us um via subing it to your primary contact and your safety policy will be reviewed by staff to ensure it meets our minimum requirements of these policy recommendations in order to get that endorsement and subsequent promotion of the events. 
um on policy disagreements when you're maybe doing your annual review of your safety policy for youth. 
A couple of folks um take issue with one thing and want it to be different. 
Um, we recommend that you, you know, take all of the time and space you need to reach consensus on a policy and that may be ongoing work and that in the interim you go with the most conservative approach. 
So, whatever the most um conservative take is on what the safety policy should be, go with that one until you've established consensus around what the policy is going to be indefinitely. 
Um, and then documentation. 
We didn't talk about it uh quite yet, but obviously if the one of the reasons that we have policy is so that you can document when policy isn't followed, this happens. 
It's not the end of the world. 
Um, but you should definitely document, document, document. 
when in doubt um document but any so the good rule of thumb is like anytime the policy wasn't followed anytime there was an injury anytime that an adult is making anal an allegation of some kind against a child even as simple as so and so ran out of the room and was unsupervised for 2 minutes um until we got them back from the hallway and then anytime that an allegation is being made against an adult. 
And then document anytime that your gut just gave you a like, that was weird, a feeling shock. 
That is a good thing to write down or um make note of to your religious education professional. 
Um and I think that that is it on my additional considerations. 
So back to Evan. 
So when more help is needed um when we create covenants in most of our youth spaces the youth will ask to write down this is important for trust building some kind of confidentiality some kind of I can share my story here and it's going to stay here and that's really important for the group to have trust and it's really important that covenant also say except for cases of harm to sell for others and that you and your volunteers know what you would do in cases of harm to self or others so that you can talk about it with the youth you're ready to act. 
Um it's important to have a process and to train on it. 
So um recommend that staff and volunteers talk about this ahead of time including scenarios in our recommendation for your policies. 
We recommend that volunteers report to staff any harm to self or others. 
that it's not a volunteer role to distinguish how that harm should be be handled and that the staff get to be brought in. 
There's lots of reasons for that including appropriate um responsibility in the congregation. 
Um appropriate training for staff. 
We can expect our staff to have more training and the staff may have other pieces of information about the youth, about their family than that volunteer has and that may shift what you do with the um with the report. 
So, your process and policies should include a mandated reporting process that follows your state law for neglect and abuse. 
The states are so different, we cannot possibly give you any fraction of a summary. 
They range from report every tiny thing that possibly could ever be a problem to only report if it is the caregivers of the child or youth um who are neglecting or doing the abuse. 
Really huge range. 
I have a little asterisk here. 
It says neglect. 
Um, in our conversations getting ready for this, we had a really great conversation about how we have to be really clear that we're not making mandated report um to the state when the neglect is a white middle class judgment about um a child's well-being that is classist and possibly racist. 
So, um dirty clothes is is not neglect. 
Um unced hair is not neglect. 
Kids can look like they're um maybe haven't gotten the attention they need and the family might not have access to a washing machine. 
Maybe they need help. 
Neglect is um threatening the well-being of the child through not having enough access to medical important medical care and um food, shelter, safety. 
So that's an important thing just to flag. 
And part of that is that um families are harmed by reports to the state that are unnecessary. 
We want to follow the law absolutely make the reports we need to make and we don't want to make unnecessary reports because these systems can also harm families. 
So you need a policy and process for the staff to discern that. 
Staff also need to discern when to bring concerns to the caregivers and where to find more support for the child, youth or their family. 
So for instance um with cutting that's a kind of self harm that is a danger. 
It's not an emergency tonight, but it's a strong danger for that child and the youth's well-being. 
The staff need to know how they're going to bring in that family and and have a process for doing that so that the the youth can get more support. 
Could I have my next slide, please? So, again, this is just the barest minimum um introduction. 
We could do a whole 2 and a half hour evening program on on this. 
But in general, a how-to flowchart for dealing with um the more help is needed for emergencies. 
Some emergencies are 911 emergencies for local for mental health crisis. 
You should know whether or not you have a crisis line in your area. 
Um and things like are the police going to come to you and have a policy about who you would call if you have um active suicidal ideiation or other level of mental health emergency and what's the difference between emergency and and concern that can be can be managed without um the crisis team. 
Bishv a how-to on the other concern. 
So like the self harm um if I have a youth who I'm discovered is self harming I'm going to talk to the youth about how I make that disclosure. 
I'm going to give them choices wherever possible. 
They know I have to disclose it because it's on the covenant that I have to disclose it. 
But I'm going to say, "Do your parents know? Can I help you talk to your family?" I'm going to say, "Is is there one of your adults that you'd rather talk to than the other adult?" I'm going to say, "Do you want the DR to know or the minister?" Like, who c who in your circle of care can we give you some choices about um about how we do this disclosure? Do you want to say it? Do you want me to say it? that kind of that kind of um choice and explain what you're doing and why. 
Um the language that I have used is I care about you and I can't keep you safe by myself, which is completely true. 
Um there are these parts of teen life especially that are beyond our ability to keep youth safe on our own. 
We need layers of care around the youth and the family and it's our responsibility to try to help get those layers of care. 
And then follow-up care. 
Just because the youth, say I'm talking about cutting tonight, just because the youth with the self harm, we've talked to their parents and they have a therapist now and and they're getting that our congregation, me as the person who interacted with it, the professionals, we need to continue to provide care to that youth. 
Um we haven't just handed that off to the professionals outside the congregation. 
And then if the group knows of the concern, say it came out during group check-in, then we might need to provide some um disclosure to the families, perhaps a letter, hey, this topic came up, we may need to provide some reassurance to the other youth that, hey, we we have provided support. 
This is what we do. 
We we always provide support when we know our youth have needs. 
So, um again, that's the briefest version. 
If your congregation needs more support on creating your policies, we can uh help with that. 
So, as we come toward the top of the hour, I invite you to share in the chat something you learned today or an appreciation you have for our time together. 
Perhaps you want to share instead an intention that you're setting for yourself coming out of this hour or an area or question you would like to explore further. 
Yes, I love to I'm always curious to see what people put in the chat at the end of an hour. 
It helps me understand what's what's really popping out for different folks in our community. 
And sometimes somebody lifts up something that I missed and I'm really appreciative of that. 
So, thank you. 
This is where we ask you for some feedback. 
We're going to drop into the chat a link to a feedback form. 
And um you know, just like we were talking about earlier that we keep our community safe by being in conversation and um having feedback loops built in. 
We do this at the UUA in any variety of ways, large and small. 
And asking for feedback about our programming is one of the ways that we make sure that we're showing up in ways that are serving you and responsive to you and helping you do the important ministry that you're doing in your congregation. 
And this is also our opportunity as we're coming to a close to thank you so much for that very important and tender work often of working with the children and youth in our yuyu communities. 
It's so important. 
It's sometimes heartbreaking. 
It's often confusing. 
Uh it's sometimes challenging. 
Hopefully, it is also deeply rewarding. 
And for sure it is lifechanging and sometimes lifesaving for the children and youth whose lives you touch. 
So thank you for your leadership, for your commitment, and for being here this evening.