About us > Safe Sanctuary

Safe sanctuary: A safe place to experience God

As a way to continue to live into God's plan for our church and to nurture God's children in faith and love, the Session has adopted a plan called Safe Sanctuary. This plan seeks to support and protect children, youth, and developmentally disabled persons from any form of neglect or abuse while on church property or while engaging in church-sponsored activities or programs. Most congregations of our size have been living with such a plan.

The primary reason for the plan is to ensure the safety of those children, youth, and developmentally disabled persons entrusted to our care. Secondly, we wish to protect staff, teachers, activity leaders, or any volunteer and the whole church from false allegations. The third reason for this plan is to send a clear message to the community that we are a safe sanctuary and families who wish to visit or join us can be assured that we care about our children and youth and that we are committed to protecting them when they are in our care.

We did not adopt this plan in response to any event, but have been working on it for a long time. More information and details about the plan will be communicated as we live into this plan as a community of faith. The Session appreciates your continued faithfulness in making Westminster a safe environment where all can experience God's   love.

Click to read the Safe Sanctuary Policy.

Online Background Check Instructions

1. Go to https://westpreschurch.volunteerportal.net
2. Enter the password westminster on the Welcome Page.
3. Click I AGREE button, the Personal Information screen displays.
4. Complete the fields on the Personal Information screen. All fields with a "*" are required.
5. Click NEXT and review all information to ensure its accuracy before proceeding.
   • If you QUIT without clicking SAVE, your information will not be saved. Your background check will not run and you'll need to start over from the beginning.
   • If you click SAVE then QUIT, you will be given a reference code to enter when you return to the web site and you can start where you left off.
     • When returning to the site, click on the Welcome Page where it reads " If you are returning to finish a previous search, then click here. "
   • Enter you last name and reference code to resume your previous search.
6. Click COMPLETE