Training

Safe Church training offers an opportunity to increase and enhance our ability to ensure that our churches are safe for children, elders, and other vulnerable persons. ECCT’s Safe Church Training includes an online course followed by a 3-hour live session on Zoom. New online courses are designed to reflect whether you have previously participated in SCT, whether you currently have oversight responsibilities for events, programs, or others engaged in ministry, and ministerial roles. This training is grounded in our call to seek and serve Christ in all persons and respect the dignity of every human being. It offers an opportunity to increase and enhance our ability to live out our Baptismal Covenant within our communities of faith and in the world beyond.

Safe Church Training Protocol, found here, offers guidance as to which training is needed based on a person’s ministry role.

Appendix A of the Model Policies for the Protection of Children and Youth and the Model Policies for the Protection of Vulnerable Adults also includes a table outlining who should attend Safe Church Training and which modules they should take. Appendix A was generated by The Episcopal Church and applies to all Episcopalians in The Episcopal Church. You can find them here in the Policies folder.

The Episcopal Church in CT (ECCT) provides several types of Safe Church Training, each with different requirements for participants. Comprehensive trainings take between four and a half and six and a half hours to complete and are done once. Every three years after a person completes the comprehensive training, they complete a three-hour recertification training.

• Comprehensive (virtual only): online self-paced learning modules accompanied by a three-hour synchronous Zoom session. Online work takes between 1.25 and 3.5 hours to complete, depending on the number of assigned modules.
• Comprehensive hybrid (online modules and in person live discussion): online self-paced learning modules and a three-hour in-person live discussion. Online work takes between 1.25 and 3.5 hours to complete, depending on the number of assigned modules.
• Recertification trainings: offered virtually only, with participants attending a three-hour synchronous Zoom session. No online components are required for this training.

The Safe Church Training Program is built on theological foundations laid out in our baptismal covenant: to love and care for each other as we deepen our relationships with God, ourselves, and others and participate in God’s mission in the world.

Clergy and lay leaders take the Comprehensive Safe Church Training once, then participate in a Recertification Training every three years after that.

ECCT covers the cost of the Safe Church Training for all participants. When trainings have an in-person component, food is also provided by the host parish at no cost to participants.

• This training is designed to increase awareness regarding misconduct and abuse of power, to outline steps toward preventing abuse, to offer ways to intervene when misconduct occurs and to equip anyone in a position of parish leadership with ways of healing and rebuilding the body of Christ.
• All leaders (people who engage in ministry without responsibility for oversight of others engaged in that ministry) take the Universal Training learning module that fosters a culture of safety and inclusion for all people and covers a broad overview of issues of vulnerability, power, andhealthy boundaries. Universal Training is designed to equip all people to live out their Baptismal Covenant.
• In addition to Universal Training, all supervisors and those with oversight responsibilities for ministry programs and/or other adults who engage inministry with children and youth shall have specialized training that is tailored to their role and ministry function.
• Depending on role and responsibility, specialized training should include:
  • Prevention, identification, and response to all forms of abuse and neglect;
  • Vulnerability within the pastoral relationship;
  • An introduction to gender identity and expression;
  • The needs of LGBTQ+ children and youth;
  • The ways that children and youth can engage in self-advocacy; and
  • The needs of differently abled children and youth.

Registration for Safe Church Training is through Eventbrite and is limited to 20 participants. Registration closes one week before the scheduled session, or when capacity is reached.

• View upcoming Safe Church Training Zoom Follow-up dates and times and register online.
• Download and/or print ECCT’s Safe Church Training Resource Manual (In the Policies folder.) A link to this resource is also included in your Eventbrite confirmation email.
• Following the instructions given in the email sent to you from the Safe Church Administrator, access the online training course and complete the full training at least two days prior to your scheduled follow-up Zoom call.

Please Note: The running time for the modules within the online training course range from 1.25 hours to 3.5 hours. These modules do not have to be completed all at once; you can take breaks in between. The online course includes narration.

• After you register to participate in a Safe Church Training, you will receive information from our Administrator for Licensing and Training, that will help answer questions and direct you to the next steps. Please check your spam folder if you have not received any communication.
• If you are participating in a hybrid training, you will receive access to the online modules in the email address you provided when you registered. You will need to complete the online modules prior to the training date.

• Yes. Part of our baptismal covenant is to seek and serve Christ in all persons. That includes the people you’re ministering to and to the people around them. If you work with kids, for example, you’re likely interacting with their parent(s) or guardian(s). As such, all leaders in ECCT take the comprehensive training and are recertified every three years thereafter.
• Periodically, ECCT offers specialized trainings with focus on specific ministries. For example, trainings can focus on youth formation or camp, with specific discussion around issues related to those programs. Those trainings include discussion of vulnerabilities across the lifespan but spend time in the discussion focusing on the needs of the group’s ministries.

• All participants of the virtual trainings are asked to create an intentional wellness plan prior to participating in the training. That plan includes consideration of what each member might do if material is difficult for them.
• Participants of all Safe Church Trainings are encouraged to speak with their clergy or other trusted persons for support as needed.

ECCT offers nearly forty Safe Church Trainings between August and June. Schedules run from August to December and January to June and are found here

It is ECCT’s practice to set up the “Main Parish Contact,” as listed on the Annual Parish Survey, as an Administrator on every parish’s Praesidium Academy account. While parishes are not required to engage with the Administrator account in Praesidium, it is available should you choose to login, set it up, and utilize it. We have found it can be a helpful tool in supporting your parish’s Safe Church work.

Once you have completed the setup of your Praesidium Academy Administrator account, please follow the step-by-step instructions in this video to add trainees to your parish’s account.