Safer Congregations Website Statement

Ours is a Sexually Safer Congregation; we recognize the right of all people to feel safe and comfortable in our Meeting House. We realize that abuse exists in the world and we are committed to protecting our children and youth, our elderly, our people with disabilities and other vulnerable adults as much as possible. Our goal is to create a culture where people feel safe.  In July 2019, we updated our Safer Congregations Policy, which we encourage you to read and help us maintain.

We strive to help our youth learn to make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior with accurate age appropriate information through the OWL (Our Whole Lives) program.

We have safety guidelines in place for overnight trips that involve youth and adults. Our spaces for counseling and education sessions with children and youth are easily observable by others. All regular volunteers who work with children are screened. We require that two unrelated adults be present for all activities with children and youth. While we realize that it is impossible to prevent all abuse; we seek to make our meeting house as safe a space as possible.  If something happens or you have a concern, please contact the Religious Education Director Rayla D Mattson or the Ministers Rev Cathy or Rev Heather or our board president as soon as possible.

If you are a registered sex offender, before attending services or activities at the meeting house, see the Reverend  first. You will be required to make an agreement to protect yourself and the congregation limiting your contact with vulnerable persons. Keeping the terms of this agreement is required for you to continue being part of our community. This is allowed because we recognize that part of treatment and recovery for sex offenders may be learning to be a healthy member of a religious community. See this link for the UUA’s document “Balancing Acts” for details.

Our Safer Congregation Team includes one of the ministers, the Director of Religious Education (DRE), a member of the Board of Directors and at least two members of the congregation recommended by the Ministers and the DRE and appointed by the Board.

Link to the Unitarian Universalist Ministers’ Association Code of Conduct.