Vacation Bible School is often the most high-energy, chaotic, and beautiful week in the life of a children's ministry. But in the thick of planning decorations, games, and snacks, ensuring the safety and protection of the children in your care must be the baseline of your preparation. Offenders look for environments where privacy is easily accessed and chaos masks boundary violations. Here are the top 7 things you need to prepare right now to make your VBS a sanctuary of safety and healing.

Unstructured time (such as travel, overnight trips, informal hangouts, lock-ins, etc.) create an increased risk for children and teens because they involve sleeping arrangements, showering and changing, or other vulnerable situations. In this article we will look at basic safety recommendations for student trips.

It is not a question of if, but when, tragedy will strike your congregation. Are you prepared for it?

GRACE Board Member Victor Vieth shares strategies for developing effective policies for preventing child maltreatment.

While offenders should receive the love and forgiveness of Jesus, we must realize that forgiveness and love do not eliminate the consequences of the sin.

Essay by Joey Mangano on the relationship between sexual abuse and insurance companies.

An abuse survivor shares some practical wisdom about how she's protecting her children.

No matter how much we think we might know about child molestation, people will continue to be easily fooled. Pastor Jimmy Hinton explains some of the barriers to understanding how abuse functions.

Boz Tchividjian interviews Justin and Lindsey Holcomb, authors of a children’s book God Made All of Me, which teaches age-appropriate lessons on boundaries and safety.

Boz Tchividjian explains three narratives that are most common among offending leaders.

As followers of Jesus, we are called to minister to everyone in church including sex offenders, but we should never do so in isolation from child protection professionals or in ignorance of the harm done to their victims. Simon Bass explains why.

Sexual offenders have perfected a grand deception that sadly seems to work all too well inside faith communities.

Some concluding thoughts on April’s annual Sexual Abuse Awareness Month.

Taking a page from the popular Netflix series, Boz Tchividjian lays out how “The Underwood Scheme” and how it would look when deployed against the vulnerable in a church setting.

Offenders and their supporters use three common strategies to try and convince others to embrace their distorted definition of innocence. This article explains each tactic so you can better understand an abuse disclosure.

What does it take to be great in the greatest kingdom of time and eternity? Dr. Diane Langberg shares lessons from children we all can learn from.

In order to truly safeguard children, faith communities must recognize that activities involving children attract two kinds of people: those who love children and those who would prey on children. At any given point in time, we cannot be certain which of those two types is engaging with our children.

New Gospel Outreach Church knowingly hired a convicted sex offender as their senior pastor, but they are not alone. pastor!  Many churches and faith communities are increasingly faced with decisions related to sex offenders and disclosures of sexual abuse.