How to Protect your Church’s Children

As Christians, we have the obligation to support and encourage people recovering from all kinds of struggles, but how do we do this without endangering our children? Below, you’ll find tips designed to help you provide the best security for your children, in a manner that is unobtrusive and inviting to guests of all backgrounds.

Only allow the person who dropped the child off to pick the child up

It is impossible for child care workers to keep track of every bit of inter-family politics, and if you want visitors, you have to accept the fact that you don’t know which visitor has an angry ex willing to use the children as pawns in a messy divorce proceeding. Restricting pick up to those who dropped the child off eliminates the possibility of an unauthorized party fooling you into thinking they have custody.

Excellerate Child Check-in helps you do this by:

• Printing unique receipts so you know that the person picking the child up is the same person who dropped the child off.
• Allowing you to use these receipts to keep the children in their classrooms and retrieve them only when their parent or guardian arrives. This reduces the possibility of a parent without custody rights seeing their child and trying to take them, or a child seeing an adult they know and going with them without permission. This also prevents the pick-up area from becoming so noisy and hectic that a child can slip off.
• Our fingerprint scanning check-in option can also be used in a variety of ways to verify a parent’s identity, such as tying a child’s record to the parent’s fingerprints, so if someone wants to pick up a child but their print doesn’t retrieve the record, you know they aren’t the parent who dropped the child off.

Name badges can be completely customized. 

Give every child a unique call number so parents can be paged

When the Excellerate Child Check-in system prints a receipt for each child, it includes a unique security number.  Numbers can be generated automatically by the program, or you can give each child their own number that you select-allowing you to easily tailor the security number to include information that might help find the parent, such as cell phone number or location of the parents’ Sunday school class.

These numbers are easy to display and many presentation softwares, such as MediaShout and ProPresenter, come standard with the ability to superimpose numbers such as these.

Keep track of medical conditions and allergies

In Excellerate, all you have to do is enter the pertinent medical information into the child’s record and from that point on, every name badge Excellerate prints for that child will automatically contain that information so your volunteers will always be aware.

Streamline check-in and check-out

The more noise and confusion there is at your check-in stations, the easier it is for someone to slip in and out unnoticed. The longer it takes for a parent to drop off their child, the more likely someone will be in a hurry and leave their child to check themselves in, and if something happens, you’re legally responsible. That’s why it’s important to make the process fast, easy, and smooth, eliminating crowds and the threats inherent with them.

Excellerate makes your check-in process fast.

• Even first time users have reported checking children in at rates as low as 8 seconds per child. Imagine how fast a parent using it every week could go!
• Children are checked in using a simple, clear interface that utilizes some of the most common forms of data entry, making the process intuitive and slow downs almost unheard of.
• Lines are eliminated, crowds are diminished, and security is increased.

Barcode scanning: One of the fastest and simplest of our options. Each parent has a keytag with a barcode on it. Barcodes can be printed either one per family or one per child. The parent simply scans it. If the barcodes are set to represent an individual, the child is automatically checked in and the receipt prints. If the barcode is set to represent a family, a list of those in the family appears and the parent simply selects all the children to check in and hits the button.

Touch screen entry: This method takes a few seconds longer, but parents don’t have to keep up with the barcodes. Parents simply use the screen to type in part of their child’s name or phone number and select them from the resulting list. This format is also easier for visitors, since they can easily enter their information into the system with the touchscreen.

Keyboard and mouse entry: Regular mouse and keyboard method is a good option for smaller churches whose main concern is functionality. Since all our data entry methods are compatible with each other, churches using this option can easily implement barcodes and / or touch-screens at a later date.

Attendant entry: An attendant stands at the check-in station and asks parents for the name of their child. Entry is usually done via keyboard or touch-screen. There is, however, the advantage that this method adds a personal touch since the attendant serves as a greeter as well.

Mixed entry forms: All data entry methods are compatible with all others, all four entry options can even run on the same computer simultaneously. By using several entry options at the same station you can increase speed and flexibility since parents will use the method they are most comfortable with.