Religious Education

Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Safe Congregations and Background Check Policy for Religious Education Staff and Volunteers

• The Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (CUUF) recognizes the importance of fostering and creating communities where everyone, especially our most vulnerable populations such as children and youth, are protected. We seek to preserve that spirit of welcome, respect and trust in balance with our concern for the safety of our children, applying the best practices from the Unitarian Universalist Association to any policies or guidelines we adopt.
• Religious education (RE) classes will be conducted following best practices from the Safe Congregations handbook: two adults or attendants will be present and classes will be conducted in open spaces or with doors open.
• The CUUF Board will conduct a background check on all staff hired to work with RE, such as the Director(s) of Religious Education. The RE director(s) will conduct a background check on all RE volunteers who are hired to work with the youth. Background checks will be repeated once every five years.
• RE director(s) will be mandatory reporters and will attend an annual training. RE volunteers will be provided an incident report form for accidents, injuries, medical situations, student behavioral incidents, or other concerns and will turn this into the RE director(s).
• Every employee and every volunteer who comes in contact with children and youth will receive a copy of the safe congregation policy, ethics policy (under development), and sexual harassment policy (under development).