Our Agreements for Online Safety

With the addition of online meetings to our longtime practice of in-person gathering, there is an opportunity for creative community building and the development of a covenant around online behavior.

Here are our initial agreements for participation.

In all online spaces:

• People of all ages will appear in clothing appropriate for the public. Backgrounds will have only appropriate items for people of all ages. And language must not be offensive.
• Live sessions will have a co-host without facilitation responsibility who can turn off microphones and cameras of any participant who doesn’t follow this agreement. This co-host will send a private message to that person in the chat. The co-host will remove any participant whose behavior and/or appearance is deliberately offensive.
• Adults will not have one-on-one electronic interaction with minors who are not their children. Instead, adult volunteers and religious professionals will include the child or youth’s parent/caretaker, another volunteer, or another religious professional on any direct communications. In cases when a minor messages an adult, the adult will post a friendly message to all saying that they got the message from that child or youth. 

In multigenerational spaces specifically:

• Like coffee hour at church, parents and caretakers are responsible for supervising their children’s participation in multigenerational space. 
• Adult participants must use their real first name – and preferably last name.

In Programs for Children and Youth specifically: 

• Each event will be staffed by two adults, approved by our Safe Congregations policy.
• Real first and last names must be used by each adult and child youth participant. To avoid inappropriate conversations, one-one private chats between participants will not be enabled during events for children and youth.