Safe Sanctuaries Training for Pastors, church staff, and volunteers is required every five (5) years.
Online Training for Safe Sanctuaries
Online training is to provide for greater consistency of training and the ability to better track background clearances. Our current online training platform is MinistrySafe.
MinistrySafe was created by legal professionals who are sexual abuse experts. After decades of litigating sexual abuse cases, Gregory Love and Kimberlee Norris founded MinistrySafe to help ministries meet legal standards of care and reduce the risk of sexual abuse. Used by several other United Methodist Conferences across the country, MinistrySafe trains 25,000-30,000 people each month—live and online. Their mission is to prevent child sexual abuse in ministry contexts.
If you have any problems accessing your church’s MinistrySafe account, please email safesanctuaries@susumc.org or call 717-766-7441 and our staff can help you.
Thank you for putting children, youth, and vulnerable adults first!
CEU’s for MinistrySafe Online Training
After viewing the Sexual Abuse Awareness Training videos and completing the quiz via MinistrySafe,
you may complete the form below to receive 0.25 CEU’s.
CEU Application & Reflection of Learnings for MinistrySafe Online Training (0.25 CEU's)
In 2014, the Pennsylvania Legislature enacted sweeping changes to the Child Protective Services Law (“CPSL”), including but not limited to expansion of mandated reporters, expansion of individuals subject to required background clearances from the Pennsylvania State Police, Department of Human Services and the FBI, expansion of the frequency of the required background clearances and imposition of significant criminal penalties for noncompliance with CPSL requirements. The CPSL was further amended on July 1, 2015 with the enactment of Act 15. The following Compliance Notification is intended to provide general guidance and related information to facilitate good faith compliance with the CPSL, as amended.
Compliance Notification - Child Protective Services Law
If you have any questions, please contact the Conference Office at 717-766-7441
or email safesanctuaries@susumc.org
If you are contacted by the press, please direct them to the Conference Director of Communications at 717-766-7441 or media@susumc.org.
Clearances
- National Sex Offender Registry (NSOR) Information
for Church Childcare - NSOR Verification Application
- Procedures for Pastor Clearances
- Procedures for Employee Clearances
- Procedures for Volunteer Clearances
- Pa State Police Criminal History Report
- Pa Department of Human Services Certification
- FBI Criminal History Report
- (FAQs FOR NEW FINGERPRINTING INFORMATION (PDF) 11-20-17)
- Volunteer Affidavit
- Request for Driver Information (Form DL-503)
- Pennsylvania Child Abuse History Certification (Form CY 113)
- Report of Suspected Child Abuse (Form CY 47)
Conference Policies, and Procedures
Susquehanna Conference Safe Sanctuaries Policies
- Introduction
- Screening, Recruiting and Selecting Procedures
- Supervision
- Cyber Safety and Electronic Communication
- Responding to and Reporting Abuse
Sample Documents
Boundaries Training
For Clergy, CLM and Laity Assigned to a church
ATTENTION ALL CLERGY:
Compliance with PA Law and Conference Requirements for Protecting Children and Vulnerable Adults
This is a reminder that by PA Law, all clergy, church employees and volunteers who work with children MUST have clearances completed every 5 years. Failure to do so is breaking the law. See above for links to complete clearances. It is also required by our Conference to complete the Ministry Safe shown above.
Clergy and those serving as pastoral leaders are required to take Boundaries Training every 4 years. If your last Boundaries class was prior to 2018 you are NOT in compliance.
There will be an in-person training held in every District in the coming months. This information will be advertised conference-wide. There are currently no options other than the training offered by the conference.
- Marian Hartman, Assistant to BoOM, Boundaries Trainer
If you have previously taken Boundaries and need to take a class to renew your training there are now two online options from the Lewis Center for Learning.
These can be found at https://www.
These courses cost $49 and are at your expense. There is no "group code" to use when you register.