Adult Care Ministry: Planning Helps Avert Liability Risks
There is more than one way to share the love of Christ, and sometimes, it involves looking beyond ourselves and caring for the wider community’s needs. Humanitarian outreach is at the heart of worship, and planning an outreach ministry doesn’t have to require a hefty budget. It can be as simple as spending time with the elderly at a nursing home.
When you’re a part of an adult care ministry, you support some of the most vulnerable people in society. From looking after terminally ill individuals and people with disabilities to senior citizens, the care you provide is usually specialized and may require more physical and/or mental effort than some other outreach programs.
Caring for these populations is rewarding, but it also carries a higher liability risk. In the US, one in four adults who are 65 or older have falling incidents every year. This is why, when putting together an adult care ministry, it’s important to choose only trustworthy and qualified volunteers and staff to eliminate any occurrences of neglect, mishaps, and wrongdoings during the ministry activities.
Background Screening Helps Reduce Liability Risks
For social work, it is best to choose people with pleasant temperaments who encompass positive character traits like patience, dependableness, and honesty. The screening process can also involve running a criminal record search on potential staff and volunteers. In fact, certain states even require you to perform criminal background checks on potential staff for specific types of adult and most child care ministries.
When possible, consider hiring staff and volunteers with whom you already have a relationship. Selecting people you have known for a year or more can help reduce the possibility of elder abuse. Background screening should include obtaining reference checks in additional to the criminal background investigation. Church insurance providers want to be assured church organizations with an adult care ministry are actively seeking to protect the seniors that churches are taking care of.
Appropriate Training and Licensing
Many church outreach ministries that care for vulnerable people, like nursing homes, are required by their state to have certain licensing, which is the same way different types of employees of said facilities are mandated. Moreover, the people you select should have the necessary training. This may not always be necessary, especially if your activities as a ministry only involve visits and distributing food, but if you’re more proactively involved, it’s good to be trained in things like first-aid, wheelchair operation, and CPR administration.
Seek Out Help From Your Children Ministry
While children cannot do the heavy lifting, they can lift their spirits through music and smiles. When children show up of all ages, they bring new life and energy our senior saints love to be around. Not only will the kids put a smile on these adults faces, it will also be an opportunity to bless each of the kids. With proper supervision, liability risks associated with the kids are minimal. While the reward for all people involved is priceless.
One year a youth group I lead, went to one of our senior sants house who was bedridden. We rented a large dumpster, and the kids and staff helped clean up the outside of his house. The backyard had become overgrown with tall grass, weeds, and trees that needed trimming, and within a few hours the kids had provided this individual a view of his backyard again. This brought him tremendous joy, and the kids and staff also felt good about themselves for being able to help.
Address Additional Liability Risks
If you plan on using your church property or vehicles your staff own to carry out adult care ministry activities, you must minimize your guests’ exposure to harmful factors. This could involve anything from taking care of maintenance at church to ensuring that the vehicles to be used are safe. If a guest does end up becoming ill or hurt due to negligence on your staff’s part, the court will hold your ministry liable.
During a ministry outreach program, if an incident requires your ministry to provide church insurance coverage for the damage, ministry insurance can save you from having to pay more than what you might be capable of. Integrity Now Insurance is the #1 church insurance agency helping churches throughout the US, and we’ll link you to various church property insurance services in California, Ohio, Arizona, and many more states. As your church insurance brokers, we are here to help you with your church liability insurance, workers’ compensation insurance, directors and officers insurance, abuse coverage, religious beliefs coverage, and more. Connect with us today.
