What we'll be doing differently at our next church-based respite care event

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While our respite care event this past weekend went well, we'll be making some changes to improve our next one. In case you missed my previous posts, here they are:
Today's list of potential improvements isn't complete because our leadership team hasn't met yet to create our more comprehensive list. Based on our informal conversations and my own reflections, though, I can offer the start to that list. Next time, we'll...
  • ...bring carpet cleaner and paper towels. We had a puke incident on Saturday and discovered (a) cleaning supplies weren't easy to find at the church and (b) the napkins in our bathrooms are too thin for anything but drying hands.
  • ...provide a little more training on our policies for diaper changes and bathroom visits. I didn't cover this as well in our volunteer training as I should have. 
  • ...launch registration sooner. As we figured out the ins and outs of registration this time, we didn't get it up and running as soon as we would have liked. We'll change that next time.
  • ...get the word out more. We have several - mostly secular - groups who were willing to publicize the event for us, and we didn't utilize them as well as we could have. We're ramping that up for December 10.
  • ...get some freebies for families. We gave all of our families a little goodies bag with a stress ball, a CD of our children's ministry music, a mini-postcard invitation to our fall festival on October 29, and a brochure from the music therapist who helped us in the last hour of the event. I know we have connections in local restaurants and plan to offer Chick-fil-a freebie coupons and possibly a couple other gifts in the bag next time.
  • ...get some freebies for volunteers. Just like we would show love to our families with those types of coupons, we love to show appreciation to our volunteers. We gave each of them a little gift for serving with us this time, and I know we want to do a little something like that again on December 10. 
  • ...pass the torch. Right now my knee surgery is scheduled December 2nd*, and my surgeon says I can help with but not lead the December 10th event. I'll co-lead the planning of this event with two of my leadership team members, and then I'll turn them loose to run it. 
  • ...increase communication with the parents of teenage volunteers. I didn't do a great job of making sure the details of the event were clear for all of the parents of youth who volunteered. As a result, some of our less responsible but still incredibly passionate student helpers were MIA: they wanted to help, but Mom or Dad didn't know enough to get them there or to hold them accountable to follow through. To be able to train the next generation to serve well, I need to do a better job of partnering with their parents.
  • ...tighten up communication with other church staff. I serve at a large church in which most of our adult Sunday school classes are larger than the entire congregation of my last church (a small, rural church in Texas). For my old church, I had a key to the building, and I knew all of the other members. That's not the case at my current church, and I learned a lot about the differences in event planning/execution in a large vs. small church for this event. We have room to improve in our logistics, and we now know how to do that and who to talk to for each step in the process.
I know the other members of my team will have other good tips for future events, so this certainly isn't everything we can improve upon. It's a start, though, to move forward to our next one!

Next week I'll be posting about what we learned from other churches, based on research completed by our amazing intern. That research is what made this event as successful as it was.


~+~
*Note on the surgery, if you're curious:
It will be multiple procedures, but all can be done in one day via arthroscopic surgery so I should be walking (albeit with pain) that day and driving the next (as long as I'm not on pain pills). Why hold off until December 2? Well, my RA drugs inhibit my immune system, so I only have a one-week window in which surgery is safe during each seven-week IV cycle. We're hoping to reschedule for next Friday or the following one if the surgeon has an opening, and I would love your prayers for that!

Our recent church-based respite event: Roles, Layout, & Schedule

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I kicked off this respite-related series on Monday with the three questions you need to consider before launching church-based respite care events, and then I followed up yesterday with explanations and examples of safety measures you could use.

Today I'll share a little more about our specific event, and tomorrow I'll share some ideas for what we might do differently at our next event on December 10. And stay tuned next week for a series of posts based on the research our Access Ministry intern did this summer as she gathered information for us (and now YOU!) about 20+ church-based respite care events taking place around the country.

First, here are the nuts and bolts of our last event:
  • Day: Saturday 
  • Time: 4-7 pm
  • Food: Pizza and juice boxes or food brought from home (served at 5:15)
  • Location: Our church
  • Cost: $5 (might be free in the future but we haven't decided)
Next, volunteer information and training basics:
  • We asked one adult Sunday school class to commit to help us for this event (and we'll ask a different class for December), and we recruited from our high school Sunday school classes as well. Additionally, I identified some people who I knew already and asked to join us from beyond those two groups.
  • We initially planned to train volunteers on the Sunday prior to the event, but we shifted our plans to have training beginning at 3pm on the day of the event. (This did require a little extra work for us, because we had to collect background check forms in advance of training, whereas we could have collected them at training in our original plan.)
  • Some volunteers expressed an interest in helping in a specific way, and we were able to accommodate those requests.
One of our primary tools for volunteers, as well as our planning resource, was a two-side page with the layout of the physical space on one side and our schedule on the other:
Access Respite Map and Schedule

Because several families had to cancel the day before the event due to illness or unexpected out-of-town company, that file shows some more rooms closed that we had originally planned. Below is our original layout, before we made those changes:

Three notes about the layout:
  1. Instead of having a set schedule, we created several spaces that kids could rotate through with volunteers stationed at each exit so no child could escape. We did have picture cards we could use with the parents at check-in to create a more defined event schedule for those children who required that, but otherwise child-buddy pairs and siblings just utilized space based on their own interests. 
  2. I renamed the "low-functioning class," calling it "separate class" on the final version. While "low-functioning" is a helpful term in school settings, no person has a diminished function in the body of Christ, so we choose not to use that phrase if we can avoid it.
  3. To create this layout, I used the file that our church uses for fire exits and other building plan needs. I used a photo-editing program (for me, it was Photoshop Elements, but any program would do, even a basic one like Paint) to delete some parts that we didn't need and add dots and text.
In order to communicate the finer details of each role, I listed the roles in a document (found here - it's nothing fancy!) and cut them into strips. Then all I had to do was hand the appropriate slip to each volunteer. Here's a list of the roles we had and the wording I used to describe each role on the slip they received:
  • Registration: I didn't have a slip for this one, because I trained them separately. So that I could recruit some fantastic - but busy! - ladies to serve here and so that our other volunteers could be in place from the beginning, these volunteers only came for the beginning portion to check families in. Instead of a slip, these ladies were given the Access Respite Check-in Cheat Sheet.
  • Bathrooms: "Hang out in front of the bathrooms to assist buddies so no one was alone with a child in the restroom."
  • Door: "Hang out in front of your assigned door to downstairs so that no child goes through the door unattended. If a buddy-child pair uses your stairwell to go to the playground, please stand in the stairwell until the buddy & child have gone outside so that no adult is alone with a child."
  • Big room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Run the computer/movie."
  • Coloring/puzzle/play room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone w/ a child. Clean as needed."
  • Music/game room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
  • Wii room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
  • Sensory room: "Help as needed. Stay in there so no one is alone with a child. Clean up as needed."
  • One-on-one buddy: "Enjoy the event with the child!" (Also, remember that we provide buddies with a notecard of child info in addition to this.)
  • Floater: "Help as needed. Rotate through areas."
  • Food: I didn't have a slip for this role - which was filled by the same volunteer who hung out in the elevator for us in the beginning - because I trained her myself prior to the event.
For all of the roles except one-on-one buddy, I included the note below so that they could use downtime wisely and not feel like it was wasted time:

If you find yourself alone, take time to pray for the event, these families, other families with special needs who are unchurched, and Access Ministry as a whole.

I didn't include leadership roles above, which included our med team, but hopefully this can provide you with some framework to start from.

~+~
Final notes: I know the level of detail found in this post won't translate perfectly to what you'll do at your church, given the layout of your facility, the size of your event, and the number of volunteers you use. However, I hope it can be helpful to give you some ideas to begin thinking about the details of an event for your church.

Here are two other posts you might find helpful about respite events (not from my blog, but from the blog of Jackie Mills-Fernald at McLean Bible Church):

Come back tomorrow for what we'll plan to do differently in December, and visit again next week to learn more about how 20+ other churches run their respite care events!

Safety measures for successful church-based respite care

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Yesterday I posted about the top three questions for a church-based respite care event for kids with disabilities. If you didn't read it, click here. As a refresher, here are those questions:

(1) How will you keep your guests safe?
(2) How will you keep your guests safe?
(3) How will you keep your guests safe?

I suggested that you needed to consider each of these things for safety, and now I'll break down some more details of each for our program. Before I do that, though, I need to give a disclaimer:

This post is meant to describe what we have chosen to do at our church. Each decision was based on our church environment, leadership, and needs, and you need to consider the realities of your own church setting and operate in submission to your church leadership as you make decisions for your event. Particularly in matters of safety, you'll want to confer with whoever is responsible for legal liability matters for your congregation.

In other words, don't expect any guarantee of success or safety if you just blindly adopt what we've done. I will blog next week with insights from other churches, which will allow me to provide you with more varied practical perspectives. Finally, please remember that God is the source of all wisdom for all things. Seek his guidance, and value it much more than any tips I offer here.

The safety measures I mentioned yesterday were:
  • a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child 
    • Why? We live in a fallen world, which means sin pervades the church as well as secular environments. Because children with disabilities are more likely to be neglected, physically abused, and sexually abused than their non-disabled peers (source), it is our responsibility to exercise extra caution when working with this group of kids. Having a policy that no volunteer is ever alone with a child with special needs keeps them both safe: (1) the child isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be abused without witnesses and (2) the volunteer isn't placed in a vulnerable position in which he could be accused wrongfully of abuse. 
    • How? Walk through the event space physically with your team. It might even help to have one member of the team act as the volunteer and another as a child with special needs. In each space, discuss as a team, "How could this activity or space cause challenges for adhering to this policy?" For us, that helped us realize that between check-in (which took place in our children's building lobby) and entry into our respite space (which was the second floor of the building), kids would ride alone with their one-on-one volunteer in the elevator. What did we do? Recruited a gracious volunteer to sit on a stool in the elevator for about 30 minutes, going up and down with kids and their volunteers. Then she hung out by the elevator upstairs to accompany them down if they needed to head out to the playground (and we had another volunteer hanging out on the playground to receive that child/volunteer pair).
  • an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
    • Why? Even if you have an extensive conversation with a parent, you might misunderstand something and you won't remember everything. This form gives you their own words (with their signature for documentation purposes) so you don't miss anything.
    • How? Here's our form.We borrowed heavily from Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, as well as pulling some elements from a few other churches, so feel free to borrow from ours as well. If you'd like the .doc version, email me.
  • a medical form (if not included in your intake form) that allows your church to have the authority to take medical action on behalf of the family if an accident or other medical emergency arises
    • Why? Parents won't be there. If a child. for example, has a seizure or falls off playground equipment, you need to have basic knowledge and permission to treat the child, especially if mom or dad has turned off or forgotten to charge the cell phone.
    • How? We have two basic ones we use at our church, one that has to be notarized which we use for trips outside of our county and one that doesn't have to be notarized for use when parents will not be on site but when the event will be in our county. Because our respite events are church-based and only three hours long, we use the in-county one that doesn't require a notary, which makes it easier for parents. This is the form we require for each child, including those with disabilities and their siblings (because siblings can have an accident too!).
  • background check forms to screen your volunteers
    • Why? As I mentioned above, we live in a fallen world. None of us is sinless, and none of us is a perfect judge of character, other than God. Events in which care is provided for children and/or people with disabilities provide fertile ground for abuse, and an abuser could be drawn to volunteer for such events to gain opportunity to engage in that type of sin. Background checks can screen for those with a criminal history. Please remember that background checks only eliminate offenders who have been caught previously, so make sure you exercise other cautions (for example, the policy of no volunteer ever being alone with a child) to protect the children in your care.
    • How? I won't share our exact form with you because it will be no good to you without an agency to actually do the background check for you. I would suggest calling large churches and children-focused non-profits in your area to find out who they use. And email me if you'd like me to find out who does ours. 
  • elopement plan (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
    • Why and how? See this post in which I describe both.
    •  One specific detail from this past weekend's respite event: We choose to avoid using the first floor of our building - except to enter the space and enter/exit the playground - so that even the craftiest escapee wouldn't end up in the parking lot. An eloping child ended up in the parking lot one Sunday (with a volunteer in pursuit who caught up to him before he left the sidewalk and entered the actual lot), and that's not something we - or you -wanted to risk happening.
  • bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
    • Why? People with disabilities may need help with bathroom/diapering need at much older ages than typically developing children. 
    • How? Once again, you must set the policy that a volunteer tending to bathroom/diaper needs is never alone with a child. This includes in the bathroom. You also should operate in agreement with your church's policies for diapering/toileting younger children for two reasons: (1) some of your volunteers will already be trained on these and (2) it demonstrates respect for other ministry leaders (remember, special needs ministry should complement and not compete with other ministry areas). For us, that means that only women can change diapers, though a man can be the second person present (even if that means they have to assist in the changing process to some degree). This is true also for when a child's clothes need to be changed, as was the case for one child who threw up during last Saturday's event at our church.
  • medical professionals for the event
    • Why? You want to be proactive so you can rightly react to any emergencies. Also, if you want to be able to administer medication during the event (if, for example, a guest usually takes medicine with dinner and your event includes dinner) or if you want to be able to accept children with feeding tubes or other medical needs, you'll want to have a medical professional.
    • How? For us, we had one med team leader on our planning team - an RN (who makes me feel old because I led her Bible study group when she was a senior in high school) - as well as two other RNs who volunteered for the event itself. I know that other churches have hired a nurse or EMT to be present or recruit one or two from outside of their church. 
  • at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
    • Why? Some kids with disabilities won't need one-on-one assistance, but it is wise to provide that so each child will be adequately cared for. You need additional volunteers for non-disabled siblings too.
    • How? We brief each one-on-one volunteer on the specific needs of their child. We forgot these cards this time, but we also aim to provide a notecard with basic info on the child; that way I keep the forms on the child with one other leadership team member holding a copy of all forms as well, and the buddy can just have a quick reference version.
  • a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
    • Why? Kids with disabilities are more likely than other kids to have food allergies, food sensitivities, or other special dietary needs. 
    • How? We served pepperoni or cheese pizza and apple juice boxes for dinner, and during online registration, parents had the option of selecting "My child can eat the pepperoni or cheese pizza that will be served" or "My child has special dietary needs. I will provide food for him/her." On our check-in spreadsheet, we included this and had our registration team double-check the info and either have the child wear a wristband for their pizza or, for most of our kids with special needs, have the buddy wear the child's wristband. (We just bought the paper wristbands that they use at our state fair.) We used red for stop and green for go: kids who were good to go for pizza had green wristbands (and a matching green sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy), and kids who needed to stop and eat something else had red wristbands (and a matching red sticker on the child info card that we gave his/her buddy). We also, although we didn't have to use it this time, had a designated room in which kids with  allergies could eat separately if their allergies were severe enough that eating in the main food room would be unsafe; in that case, we also would have strictly enforced hand-washing before leaving the main food room to limit the spread of those allergens.
  • a safe check-in procedure 
    • Why? During check-in, you need to be able to (a) record who is/isn't there, (b) collect any missing forms, (c) learn any last-minute info, as needed, about the child, (d) communicate to the parents that their child will be safe, and (e) help parents exit while their children head to our respite event area.
    • How?  Here's our check-in cheat sheet from the event.We did check-in on the first floor, and no parents were allowed upstairs. (If a parent had needed to see our respite area to feel comfortable before leaving their child, that would have been allowed, but only if a leadership team member joined them because parents have not cleared our background checks and other volunteer screening procedures or received training for the event; therefore, they cannot be allowed in our respite area alone.) In the check-in area, we had a team of women I greatly admire, including one mother of an adult with special needs, to meet the families, check them in on the spreadsheet I provided, and direct them. At the med team table, our nurse or I double-checked everything, and we matched up the child and buddy.
Please leave a comment with questions if any of that was unclear! (And for those of you who are respite event veterans, please let me know if I missed anything major.) Tomorrow I will talk about the layout of our event, as well as other volunteer roles, and Friday I'll blog about what we'll do differently in December.

    the first 3 questions for a church-based respite outreach event

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    I'll be posting this week and next about our Access Ministry room and this past weekend's respite event. Before we can dive into the details of our respite care event and the tips I have for launching respite at your church, let's address the preliminaries...

    What are the first three questions you need to answer for a church-based respite outreach event?

    Before I get to those, though, let's define a few terms:
    • church-based: I'm talking about the local church, which might but doesn't necessarily include members who are specially trained to work with people who have disabilities
    • respite: Merriam-Webster's second definition of this word is fitting here: "an interval of rest or relief." In the special needs community, this is a period of time in which care is provided for the person with a disability so that the caregiver can have the gift of time. If we were talking about kids without disabilities, we would call it a parents' night out. Respite can be overnight or longer, but almost all church-based or -supported respite events last no more than a few hours.
    • outreach: In Raleigh, NC, I only know two churches that offer respite care: ours and one other. The other church limits their respite event to regular church attendees. The respite events at our church, though, are for our members as well as other families in our community. Because of an odd combination of illnesses and extended family visiting from out of town, none of our members were able to attend this past weekend, so all of our guests were families who had never come to our church before Saturday afternoon.
    Now that we've defined those terms, I bet you'd like to know those three important questions. Here they are, in no particular order:
    (1) How will you keep your guests safe?
    (2) How will you keep your guests safe?
    (3) How will you keep your guests safe?

    Yes, you want all of your guests to have fun. I'll be posting about that too. But if your event is fun and not safe, you'll be a one-hit wonder. Or, actually, a one-fail wonder. Parents and caregivers of those with disabilities are more savvy and knowledgeable than most other parents I know. They won't trust us with their children if we can only offer promises of fun. They will (rightfully) want to know first if the event will be safe.

    I'll get into the finer details of each of these in future posts, but you need to be prepared with:
    • a policy and plan to prevent a volunteer from ever being alone with a child
    • an intake form to learn the information you need to know to care for each child safely
    • a medical form (if not included in your intake form) that allows your church to have the authority to take medical action on behalf of the family if an accident or other medical emergency arises
    • background check forms to screen your volunteers
    • elopement plans (i.e. how will you keep children from wandering off or running away?)
    • bathroom/toileting/diaper changing policy
    • medical professionals for the event (could be volunteer or paid)
    • at least 1 volunteer per child with a disability and enough volunteers beyond that for their siblings
    • a plan for managing food allergies and other special dietary needs
    • a safe check-in procedure
    I don't provide this list to scare you. I will have posts related to each to equip you. I just want to be clear before I offer any of that: if you are not ready to plan for each child's safety, then you're simply not ready to even begin thinking about offering respite. It isn't rocket science. It isn't unduly challenging. It isn't too hard.

    But it is work, and it does require planning. I'd love to help you learn more. Come back tomorrow for tips for each of these safety measures.

    Special needs ministry weekly round-up! {10-3-11}

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    Our respite event went well on Saturday, and I'll be writing more about that this week. Thank you for your prayers and encouragement! 

    As another update, I have an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday to figure out what we need to do next for my knee. Pain abounds, but God's grace abounds even more.

    And on to the weekly round-up...

    Nella Uitvlugt, director of Friendship Ministries, has been instrumental in paving the way for not only the acceptance but also the inclusion of people with disabilities in the church. I've never interacted with her personally, but this profile of her, published by the Grand Rapids Press, makes me want to do so.

    On a similar note, I've never met Emily Colson, and while Dancing with Max is on my "to read" list, I haven't gotten around to it yet. This post by Jeneil at Rhema's Hope, though, makes me want to. Plus it shows how God orchestrates connections among us for his glory and our good.

    I linked to a previous post in this series last week, and here's another post from Dr. Steve Grcevich with some great tips for dealing with aggressive behaviors in children's ministry.

    One of Kevin DeYoung's articles on The Gospel Coalition, Some Thoughts on Ministering to the Sick and Dying, wasn't written specifically for special needs, but some disabilities do include sickness and some parallels can be found between his topic and that of ministering to a family with a new diagnosis because those families may be experiencing the death of some of the dreams they had for their child.

    I think you'll find this interesting, from Christianity Today, thoughts on how and if the church should try to minimize distractions.

    Wonder where the kids with special needs go at your church in the fall and winter? This post from Parker's momma about what happens when Parker gets sick might help you understand why disability ministry attendance may drop at this time of year.

    Nothing like the Church: This article on Ligonier Ministries website reminds us why the church matters and why it's just not okay to exclude people with special needs in hopes that they will find their own connection with Christ away from church.
    Why, Yes! Families of Kids with Special Needs Can Be Happy: Great post by one of my favorite special needs momma bloggers, Ellen.

    The Average Christian's Letter to the Hurting: People with disabilities aren't the only ones who are often overlooked at church. People in all demographics are hurting; do we respond with the love Christ first showed us, or do we respond with the letter in this post?

    Churches doing special needs ministry in the news this week include...
    Keep praying for more churches to demonstrate that the gospel is great enough to surpass our boundaries of ability or disability. In a story about sports for youth with disabilities, I found these paragraphs (emphasis mine):
    It was especially meaningful for Margaret since her son, Hunter Heath, was born with Fragile X syndrome, a genetic condition that is the most common form of inherited intellectual disability in boys and a leading cause of autism.
    Hunter, who is now 16, has the cognitive ability of a 3-year-old. He is unable to effectively communicate or participate in extracurricular activities outside his special education classes at school.
    “Buddy Ball was exciting because it brought a sense of normalcy to our family,’’ Margaret said. “We are pretty much confined, like prisoners in our own home. We’ve even been asked to leave some churches because we were told there was nothing they could offer Hunter. This was a chance for him to get out and participate in something with other children.’’
    Pray that Hunter and others would have a place in your church.