Orientating Volunteers
Every new volunteer should receive some sort of orientation before they begin working in the classrooms. Your orientation should be catered to the needs of your church – everyone’s could be different. You want to make sure you cover any procedures, policies, rules, and any other information that is important for your volunteers to know in order to function in your Children’s Ministry.
Also, the frequency of your orientations will probably depend on the size of your church and the amount of volunteers you received on a monthly basis. You may need to consider doing a mixture of one-on-one orientations along with have a monthly or bi-monthly group orientation. It all depends on the speed of which you add new volunteers.
Consider including the following elements in your orientation:
- Light Refreshments or maybe even a meal, especially if around a meal hour (breakfast, lunch or dinner)
- Welcome to your Children’s Ministry team
- Introduce Children’s Ministry leadership
- Review of Policies and Procedures
- Sign-up list for the new volunteer to observe a class
- Assign Children’s Ministry t-shirts (if you have the luxury of having a team shirt for everyone to wear)
Some items to consider including in your Policies and Procedures are the following:
