Churches should have the most effective policies in place to prevent child maltreatment. Sure, those policies aren’t fool-proof. If someone wants to abuse, they can. However, effective policies make it harder for it to happen and more likely that the response of the church to abuse results in part of the victim’s healing as opposed to further abuse.
If you are interested in reading more about what policies would be most effective…follow this link. It is written by Victor Vieth, fellow board member at GRACE and Director of the National Child Protection Training Center. This is a must read (pdf).
Musings on Faith and Psychology 
Very helpful. Already forwarded the links to others and hope to see some of their webinars soon.
Oh, how I wish a local church had employs those ideas sooner! One of my former clients, whom all of us who worked with him knew would be a real danger to vulnerable children if not supervised vigilantly once he aged out of the youth treatment system, was able to integrate within the church, evade his staff supervision (at an adult group home), and lure a youngster into a bathroom…and the story gets horrific from there on. I’m still grieving over this.
Every church should have a state mandated, child abuse reporters on staff. Who will report cases of sexual abuse or otherwise. The church loves to do a lot of talking and conferencing but they should immediately put state mandated reporters in place, who are Christian and will hold folks accountable. The situation is just plain evil and needs such serious steps taken. State mandated reporter training is given free online.
The church takes money from the state, and/or holds back money with their exempt status, OK great! So then let’s also use the state and mandated reporters somehow in place on church boards, to protect our children.