Our Religious Education programs for children and youth entail a high degree of responsibility for the adults working directly and peripherally with the young people. All of us in the congregation teach our children not just how to be Unitarian Universalist but, perhaps more importantly, how to live in a Unitarian Universalist community, a community that gives to, cares for, critiques, affirms, questions, and blesses those within its fold.

Thus, for a people who expect their adults to be faith-keepers, trust-builders, and caregivers, it is easy to see why it is so important for us to be clear about how adults interact with children. Our responsibility to nurture spiritually and emotionally the children in our community is huge. With the stakes so high, we must not fail to guard them adequately against physical and emotional abuse. Will we safeguard against every perceivable abuse? This is not likely. However, we can significantly reduce the risk by creating and following preventative policies.

When we create explicit guidelines for appropriate behavior, we define the values that are important to us as religious people. Our statements about safe relationships create a structure in which our religious community can thrive.

—Rev. Tera Klein and Laurel Amabile

The first two sections below will help you create a set of policies that are developmentally appropriate for your children and youth. We have also included the UUA’s Youth Safety Guidelines (required for UUA events). Though not intended for adoption for individual congregational youth programs, we hope the UUA’s guidelines will inspire congregations in their own safety work.