Child Care Policy at West Shore
West Shore is committed to maintaining a safe and inclusive congregation for children, youth and adults. We guarantee quality child care at major church events and will arrange it for other programs on request and within certain limits.
Our church’s staff members have a annually budgeted line item which allows them to routinely arrange and pay for child care at all-church events, such as the Stewardship Lunch/Dinner, the Annual Meeting, the Service Auction and Congregational Conversations. In addition we offer child care for the “Getting to Know UU” classes held on the second Sunday of each month, as well as our Path to Membership class. For these events, no advance notice or registration for child care is required but appreciated. For the Path to Membership class, we will strive to accomodate childcare needs, but need a week's notice. The minimum number of children required to provide child care for any other class, workshop, meeting or event not mentioned above is four. That said, both personnel and budget limitations mean that the staff cannot guarantee child care for every church event, program or activity beyond the ones specifically named above.
Because it often takes considerable time to secure approved child care providers, we ask for advance notification of child care needs for all other church events, usually a week prior to the event. Pre-registration is required because knowing the number and ages of children will assist the staff in securing an appropriate room and number of child care providers.
We are obligated to insure safety and accountability when hiring child care providers. We conduct background checks and require two providers to be in the child care space. We do not solicit or hire child care providers on the spot, and we are not able to accept privately hired child care providers offering care inside our building.