Youth Ministry An Elvanto Guide

Transcription

1 Youth Ministry An Elvanto Guide

2 So you work with the youth in your church? You re awesome! Raising the next generation of Christians is an important job. This guide will step you through how Elvanto can help keep your church s youth safe, and make your life as a ministry leader easier. - The Elvanto Team

3 Contents Part 1 - Introduction 1 Part 2 - Access and Logins 2 Access Permissions 5 Background Checks 7 Security Codes and Check-in 16 Part 3 - Check-in and Rooms 18 Making the Check-in System work for your Church 20 Setting up the Check-in System 24 Training Volunteers to use Check-in 28 Part 4 - Pastoral Care 30 Groups 33 Reporting on Youth 35 Following up Youth and Their Families 37 Part 5 - Youth Services 39 Setting up Youth Services 40 Using Youth Services 42

4 Part 1 - Introduction Youth Ministries are important to any church. This guide will step you through the main parts of Elvanto that you will use, in approximately the order that you will use it. It covers : Protecting information related to minors Background checks Check-in Keeping track of Birthdays Allergies and medical requirements Pastoral care follow ups While we ve done our best to make this guide as comprehensive as possible, at the end of the day it s still only intended as a guideline. We hope that this gives you a glimpse of what could be, and how you might like to set up the system to suit your ministry. Happy reading!

5 Part 2 - Access and Logins Ensuring that users only have access to the information they need is vital to keeping your youth s privacy and information secure. With a combination of Lockdowns, Access Permissions and Reports, you have the ability to ensure minors are protected whilst still offering access to the features your volunteers need. Access Permissions for Youth Leaders Within Elvanto, you re capable of creating custom Access Permissions that allow you to grant and restrict access based on people s roles within the church. For example, if you have a Junoir High that runs weekly for younger youth, you may want some leaders to access the data for the youth within the Junior High, but not others. There s a number of ways you can do this Restricting access based on groups they lead, are a member of, or based on group categories Restricting access based on specific People Categories Locking their Access Permission down based on specific demographics and locations You can also lock down specific fields to specific Access Permissions. For example, you may want to give certain members view access on information relating to background checks, but not edit access. You can do this by editing the background check fields and set them to View Only for those people. Things to consider Who needs access to youths information Access options (consider lockdowns, limitations etc) Preventing access Sending login details

6 Background Checks (Working With Children Checks, Bluecard, etc) Elvanto can be used to help your church ensure you re compliant with local legislation in place to keep youth safe. Custom fields can be used to ensure that you are recording the required information, and you can then create reports to ensure that information is kept up-to-date. Things to consider Local legal requirements Who is responsible for this in your church Who can update this information (admin only or members themselves) How you want to report on this data Security Codes and Check-in Security Codes are a field that is unique for either each member or each family, based on your Check-in settings. Security Codes can be used to help make Self Check-in more secure, and they are also required for Barcode Scanning. When Self Check-in is in use, you can set it so that parents can search for any of the following options: Security Code Last Name Phone Number As Security Code is a unique field that only the parents should know, this can be used to help ensure that only the parents of youth are checking them in and out. When setting this up, you should consider the following Individual Security Codes vs Family Security Codes Family Codes and Quick Check-in Format of Security Code How to use Session Codes

7 Member Directory Privacy The Member Directory is a useful tool for members of your church to keep in contact with each other. For obvious reasons, most churches don t want the contact details of children and youth publicly available. Using the member Member Directory settings, you can exclude specific people from the Member Directory and control who has access. When it comes to Youth Ministry and the Member Directory, the main thing to keep in mind is that you will want to hide details of your youth demographics to ensure that your youth s details are being kept safe. We recommend excluding your youth demographics entirely, as well as any subdemographics.

8 Access Permissions In most countries federal or state laws and regulations will be in place to help protect youth and their information. Elvanto is designed to make sure you can restrict access to these information, to only people that should have access. Our in built Access Permission system is designed to allow you to customize the features individuals can access, as well as restricting their access to the different features of the system. Who needs access to youth s information While members of your church should be able to access and update information about themselves, accessing others data should be monitored. Access Options At the most basic levels, access to features is controlled by Access Permissions. These allow you to set what features in the system a user is able to access. From a youth ministry perspective, there s a few areas you ll want to make sure that you volunteers and staff have access to. Check-in People View Contact People Roster Unavailability This allows your volunteers to access the Check-In area for the services that they are responsible for check-in at, allows them to contact the parents of the youth, and allows them to view their own roster, to see when they re scheduled on for. It also allows them to specify when they are or are not available to serve. It might also be useful to give some of your youth leaders access to the following, so that they can ensure that your youths data is up-to-date and are able to perform any reporting that needs to be done. People Edit Groups Reports

9 This will then allow your youth leaders to view any reports that they need to view, to help ensure that everything is running smoothly. It also allows them to update any information about the youth under their care. Preventing access Once you ve ensured that your volunteers have access to the information that they need access to, it is then important to make sure that they aren t getting access to information they don t. Primarily this is done using Access Permissions, and ensuring that people don t have access to features that they shouldn t have, but can be further expanded upon in a number of ways. One way to do this is by restricting access to individual fields. For example, your volunteers may need the ability to edit profiles in order to make sure that contact details for youth are up-to-date, but you may not want them to be able to edit information about allergies. As such, you can lock this field down to the specific access permissions you want to be able to edit it. You can also restrict your access permissions to viewing people in specific people categories. This allows you to let your volunteers to see your Church Members, but not Visitors or Inactive Members. Sending Login Details Once you ve got all your access permissions sorted, you can start sending login details you volunteers. The only thing to make sure of when sending these details, is that the user has an address in the system. You can then send them an containing their login details. We do not normally suggest setting a temporary password, and would advise simply letting your volunteers setting their own usernames and passwords. We find this leads to more secure accounts.

10 Background Checks Keeping up-to-date background checks for your volunteers and staff is important to ensure that you meet an legal requirements, as well as ensuring that your youth are safe with your volunteers. This section looks at how to use Elvanto to help meet your local regulations. Local Legal Requirements Different parts of the world have different legal requirements for protecting your youth, and Elvanto is designed in such a way that you can customize the system to meet the different requirements that churches face. Two features that are often used to help churches meet these requirements are Custom Fields and Standard Reports. Using these together allow you to find the people that you are looking for with ease. While this list is by no means comprehensives, there are several examples below that may be useful to help you discover how to meet your local requirements. Woodbush United Gospel Assembly In Woodbush, all volunteers and staff that work with youth must complete a background check and carry a card indicating the success of this check at all times when working with youth. The volunteers and staff must perform this check every 3 years. Certain people, such as Police Officers and Teachers are exempt from this, as they have more stringent requirements to follow. An appointed representative must sight these documents. Woodbush is required to store the following information. Card Number AND Card Expiration Date Or, if the person is exempt: Reason for being Exempt. In this example, the following custom fields would be needed to meet local regulations. Card Number Number field Card Expiration Date Date field Exempt Reason Dropdown (Can select only one option) field. The options for this field would

11 line up with the possible reasons for exemption. Windfield Methodist Soul Center In Windfield all volunteers and staff who are aged 14 and above that work with youth must complete a simple background check every 2 years. Churches in the same area as Windfield are required to store the following information. The date of the last background check AND The outcome of the last background check. In this example, the following custom fields would be needed to meet local regulations. Date of last Background Check Date field Outcome of last Background Check Dropdown (Can select only one option) field. The options for this field would be a basic Passed or Failed option. Brightbell Empowered Christian Church In a different area again, all volunteers and staff who work with youth, who are aged 18 and over, must complete a background check every 5 years. Churches in this area are required to store the following information. The date of the last check The reference number of the last check The date they validated the check The outcome of the validation check. In this example, the following custom fields would be needed to meet location regulations. Date of last check Date Field Reference number of last check Number Field Validation Date Date field Outcome of Validation Check Dropdown (can select one option) field. This list is not exhaustive, and should be used as a guide only. Always make sure you keep up-todate with any local requirements.

12 Who is responsible for this information in your church While the effect on how you use Elvanto is minimal, knowing who is responsible for ensuring this data is up to date is still a key component in making the system work best for you. This person, or group of people, will need to have access to individuals profiles, and the fields that you are using to record this information. If you re having any reports ed monthly, this person would normally be the person that these s get sent to. In the three examples above the system works best if you have a specific person, or team of people, responsible for following up these details. This person or team of people can then have s sent to them every month telling them who they need to follow up. Who can update this information and how it gets updated. As this information often relates directly to legal requirements, you will want to make sure that only the correct people can update this information, to make sure that only correct data is being updated. As the nature of local regulations can change who is required to update this information, it depends on your local regulations as to who you allow to update this information in Elvanto. We recommend locking these fields down so that only specific access permissions can edit these fields, and if desired you can also lock them down so that only specific access permissions can view these fields too. These people can then be notified of people that they need to follow up, as mentioned in the section below. For all three examples the workflow for this is very similar. Youth Pastor and their team receive an update on people who need to have their information updated. Staff members follow these members up Once these members have updated information, staff members enter that information into the system. How you want to report on this data As with the above scenarios, reporting on this data varies from location to location, and even from church to church within those locations as each church will have different policies and ways that they ensure they follow the regulations that apply to them. Below are examples of how the previously described churches could use to go about reporting on this information.

13 Reporting on this data within the system helps ensure that you ve uploaded the correct information into the system, helps to ensure that your users have the qualifications they require to perform their tasks and to ensure you re meeting any local legal regulations. Woodbush United Gospel Assembly Woodbush uses the system to generate a number of reports to show people that fall into one of three categories. People who work with youth who do not have the required information entered into the system, or invalid dates entered into the system. People who work with youth who need to renew their information in the next 3 months. People who work with youth and have information entered in the system but their information has expired. To do this, Woodbush has set up their reports as follows. People who work with youth who do not have the required information entered into the system, or invalid dates entered into the system Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Card Exemption Is Empty Age Is Greater Than 17 Card Number Is Empty Card Expiration Date Is Empty Filter Logic: Advanced 1 AND 2 AND 3 AND (4 OR 5) This report then shows all people who need to act immediately, as they have no information entered into the system. People who work with youth who need to renew or register their information in the next 3 months Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Card Exemption Is Empty Age Is Greater Than 17 Card Expiration Date Is Within The Next 3 MONTHS

14 Age Equals 17 Birthday Is Within the Next 3 Months Card Number Is Empty Filter Logic: Advanced 1 AND 2 AND (3 AND 4) OR (5 AND 6 AND 7) This report then shows all people who have current information but who are going to need to renew their information in the next 3 Months or those that are turning 18 soon and have not yet registered their information. People who work with youth and have information entered in the system but their information has expired Filters: Departments Contains Youth Teams Card Exemption Is Empty Age Is Greater Than 17 Card Expiration Date Is Not In The Next 3 Years Filter Logic: Match all of the following Fields This report shows all people who have information in the system, but the expiration date is not within the valid range to be a valid date. As the expiration date of these cards is always 3 years from the current date, this date can not lie outside of the next 3 years without being invalid or expired. These three reports are then compiled into a single Comprehensive Report and automatically ed to their Youth Pastor every month. Windfield Methodist Soul Center Windfield s reporting needs are a lot simpler than those at Woodbush due to easier to follow regulations. At Windfield the main concerns are people that fall into four categories. Volunteers and staff who have not had a background check Volunteers and staff whose last background check was not successful Volunteers and staff whose last background check is expiring soon Volunteers and staff whose last background check has expired To do this, Windfield has set up the following reports

15 Volunteers and staff who have not had a background check Filters: Departments Contains Youth Teams Age Is Greater Than 13 Background Check Result is Empty Filter Logic: Match all of the following Fields This report shows all people in the Youth Team who do not have information recorded about a background check yet. Volunteers and staff whose last background check was not successful <em<filters: Departments Contains Youth Teams Age Is Greater Than 13 Background Check Result Equals Unsuccessful Filter Logic: Match all of the following Fields This report will then show anyone who is 14 years or older and has Unsuccessful in their background check result field. Volunteers and staff whose last background check is expiring soon Filters: Departments Contains Youth Teams Age Is Greater Than 13 Date of last Background Check Is In the Last 2 Years Date of last Background Check is Not In The Last 21 Months Filter Logic: Match all of the following Fields This report then shows people whose background checks are coming up to 2 years old, and will need to be renewed soon. Volunteers and staff whose last background check has expired Filters:

16 Departments Contains Youth Teams Age Is Greater Than 13 Date of last Background Check Is Not In The Last 2 Years. Filter Logic: Match all of the following Fields This report finds anyone whose last background check has since expired. It also serves to report on anyone whose background check date is in the future, which would indicate that it s been entered incorrectly. Just like at Woodbush, these reports are then compiled into a single Comprehensive Report and automatically ed to their Youth Pastor every month.. Brightbell Empowered Christian Church At Brightbell, the Youth Pastor needs to follow up on people that fall into the following Youth Team Members missing required information Youth Team Members who need to renew their information soon Youth Team Members who have submitted new information, but need it to be validated soon. Youth Team Members who have submitted new information, but need it to be validated urgently. Youth Team Members whose information has expired. The following 5 reports help them keep on top of this information. Youth Team Members with no information recorded Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Age is Greater Than 17 Date of last check Is Empty Reference number of last check Is Empty Filter Criteria: Advanced 1 AND 2 AND (3 OR 4) This report then picks up anyone that s in the Youth Team that is missing any of the required information. Youth Team Members who need to renew their information soon Filters:

17 Departments Contains Youth Team Age is Greater Than 17 Date of last check Is Within The Last 5 Years Date of last check Is Not Within The Last 54 Months Age Equals 17 Birthdate Is In The Next 6 Months Date of last check Is Empty Filter Criteria: Advanced: 1 AND (2 AND 3 AND 4) OR (5 AND 6 AND 7) This report then finds anyone that has existing information that needs to update their information in the next 6 months, or those that are turning 18 in the next 6 months that will need to register their information. Youth Team Members who have submitted new information, but need it to be validated soon Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Age is Greater Than 17 Date of last check Is In The Last 3 Months Validation Date Is Not In The Last 3 Months Filter Criteria: Match all the following Fields. This report finds anyone that has recently updated their information, but hasn t had their information validated yet. Youth Team Members who have submitted new information, but need it to be validated urgently Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Age is Greater Than 17 Date of last check Is In The Last 5 Years Validation Date Is Not In The Last 5 Years Filter Criteria Match all the following Fields

18 This report finds anyone that has updated their information, but has not had validation done yet. This is similar to the report above, but lists those that need their information validated first. Youth Team Members whose information has expired Filters: Departments Contains Youth Team Age is Greater Than 17 Date of last check Is Not In The Last 5 Years. Filter Criteria: Match All The Following Fields. This report shows all people whose information has expired, and haven t updated their information on time. Like Woodbush and Windfield, these reports are then compiled into a single Comprehensive Report and automatically ed to their Youth Pastor every month.

19 Security Codes and Check-in Security Codes are unique codes that are assigned to individuals and primarily used for check-in. All members require a security code of some description to be checked in. Individual Security Codes vs Family Security Codes Using a single security code for an entire family can at times allow for quicker check-in especially when using Quick Check-in. There are pros and cons to using both. Pros of Family Codes: One code to remember Can speed up check-in Only one barcode needed for an entire family if you re using barcodes Members can still have individual codes if desired Pros of Individual Codes: More secure Easier to setup Individual codes can be generated automatically More control over checking individuals in Either option will work for self check-in or normal check-in. If you re looking for the ability to quickly check in all members of a family at once using quick check-in though, then you will want to use family codes. Family Codes and Quick Check-in Family codes work well with quick check-in and can be used to check entire families in or out at once without having to go through and scanning each individual s tag. This is useful especially with really large families! One thing to consider though is that it will always check the entire family in and if certain family members aren t present they ll still be checked in.

20 Format of Security Codes We allow you specify a custom format for your security codes. The format you chose will not change how the system works, you simply need to specify a format that meets the needs of your church. A large number of churches will simply use the initials of their church name, followed by a series of numbers.this is entirely up to you. You just want to make sure that what you choose is able to be remembered by the parents of your youth. How to use Session Codes Session Codes can be used to help increase the security of your check-in system. Session Codes are randomly generated codes, that can be formatted in a similar matter to Security Codes. The useful feature of Session Codes, are that they are always re-generated when the person checks in. This allows you to print the session code on your check-in labels, and then when the parent comes to collect the label, they need to provide the label with the correct session code to collect their child. This helps ensure that someone else doesn t try to use a check-in label from a previous service to collect a child.

21 Part 3 - Check-in and Rooms What the Check-in system is (and how it works) The Check-in system is designed primarily to allow you to check youth into services and to keep track of who has attended (when they arrive and when they leave). The check-in system can also be used in conjunction with barcode scanners and label printers to allow staff to correctly identify parents and youth. The labels that are printed using the check-in system can also be customized to show important information such as the parents contact details or any custom fields such as allergies, or medical requirements. To find out more about how to make the Check-in system work for your church, read this section of the guide. Setting up the Check-in system To begin, it s important to make sure that all your settings and hardware are set up correctly. This begins with your label printers. When setting up your printers and labels, the following things need to be considered: Label Size Where labels will be printed Information required on the labels This section of the guide goes into further detail regarding setup and what to consider specifically. Training volunteers to use the Check-in system Once you ve set your demographics, rooms and any print stations/barcode scanners you re wanting to use up, the next step is to start training!

22 How you train your volunteers to use Check-in really depends on how you re wanting to use the system. Once it s setup, ideas and more information can be found on this page.

23 Making the Check-in System work for your Church The Check-in system is a versatile tool which can be customized to suit your Church. The system can be expanded to check-in adults if desired, but this guide focuses on how to make it work in the context of your youth ministry. Using Barcodes with Elvanto Check-in What Label Printers are Compatible Security and Session Codes How to it works for your church Quick Check-in Using Barcodes with Elvanto Check-in The Check-in system can be used in conjunction with a barcode to help speed up the check-in process. There s just a few things you need to consider: Settings you ll need to set: Under Settings > Check-in Settings, change your code type to Manually set a code at first checkin. This will allow you to have a collection of pre-generated barcodes on hand and issue a new barcode to youth when they check-in for the first time. Your Family Codes setting can be set to either option.

24 Each person within a family must have a unique security code This setting gives all members in a family a unique security code and as such, they ll have different barcodes to scan. Allow family Members to use the same security code All members of the family can use the same security code and as such they only require one barcode. Either setting works with barcodes, it s up to you how you want this to work for your church. Equipment you ll need Barcode Scanner. Any cheap barcode scanner from ebay or Amazon should work fine, but the higher quality, the better. Generating Barcodes There s a number of online tools you can use to generate barcodes, but there s also offline tools which include things like add-ons for Microsoft Excel. This tool by Avery is a useful, free online tool that you can import CSV files into and generate a series of barcodes with. Alternatively, for single barcodes the Dymo Software can also be used to generate and print barcodes. What value to use for the barcode The barcode value should line up with an individual s security code. When adding a new person or family, it is suggested to have a pre-existing set of barcodes handy so that you can simply scan the new barcode in for the member s security code. What Label Printers are Compatible Elvanto currently only supports DYMO label printers. We hope to bring support to Brother and Zebra label printers in the future, but their developer tools are not yet compatible. DYMO label printers work well with Elvanto to allow a seamless integration with the check-in system. We are confident that any DYMO LabelWriter 400+ will work with our check-in system. We have currently tested the following models:

25 DYMO LabelWriter 400 (takes twice as long as the 450 to print labels) DYMO LabelWriter 450 Turbo DYMO LabelWriter 450 Twin Turbo For help with setting up your label printer view this article. Security Codes and Session Codes To give your youth a layer of security when checking in, you have the option to use security and session codes to help protect youths information. Security Codes In the Self Check-in settings, if you disable searching by phone numbers or last name, people will only be able to search by security code. This code is unique to the individual, or the individual s family if set under Settings > Check-in Settings. If you are having the security codes randomly generated, you can specify a format to the codes, with a predefined suffix or prefix. Session Codes Session codes are an optional, additional level of security that can be added to the check-in system. When these codes are enabled, the session codes will be printed on any labels printed. You can then use these session codes to verify that the labels the parents who are coming to collect youth are the correct labels for that session, as every time people are checked in, they will get a new session code. In a similar fashion to security codes, you can specify the format of the codes that are used for session codes. How Check-in can work for your Church Self Check-in Self Check-in frees up your volunteers and allows the parents of youth to ensure that youth are checked in correctly. The parents of youth go to the check-in desk print out their labels and then can drop their youth off at the room where they ve been checked into. This frees your volunteers up from having to check youth in so that they can focus on looking after the youth. Alternatively some churches have their staff check-in using the self-check-in page to make it easier for their volunteers.

26 Staff Check-in Having your staff perform the check-in procedure can help ensure that all your youth are correctly checked in, and the correct labels given to parents. A common method to help achieve this, is to giving your team members tablets allowing them to check-in youth as they arrive and allows them to make sure that the youth are checked in correctly, in case something happens. It also allows your volunteers to check for any information they need quickly. How it works Your volunteers simply have a ipad or similar tablet where they access the Check-in screen. Once you have your print stations set up correctly they can then check youth in as they enter and have labels printed at the correct print station. Quick Check-in Quick check-in is a variant of self check-in that is designed to work with barcode scanners. Quick check-in allows your members to simply scan a barcode that relates to their security code and check-in, no further interaction required. If the person or people that the barcode relates to only has one possible room to check-into and only one possible service it will that automatically check that person or people into that service. If there s multiple services or rooms that the person or people can check-into they will be asked to make a decision if possible.

27 Setting up the Check-in System Setting up your label printers and making sure they work properly the first time saves a lot of time and energy down the track. This section looks at what you need to ensure these are set up correctly, and the different options you have for customizing your labels. Setting up your Label Printers Customizing Label Designs and Information Setting up Print Stations Setting up your Label Printers There is software that you will need to download and install to get label printing working. Please read this article for instructions on how to set these up. Tablet and Smartphone label printing You can print labels from your ipad, iphone, android or any other internet enabled device using Print Stations. For details on setting these up, continue reading. What size labels work with Elvanto? We support the following Dymo label sizes: Address (89 x 28 mm) Large Address (89 x 36 mm) Large Address (70 x 54 mm) Shipping (101 x 54 mm) Medium (57 x 32 mm) The labels you use need to be landscape orientation so that all information and logos fit. To view and select your label size, log into your account and go to Settings > Check-in Settings. If we don t support your label size, us and we ll try to add it in for you. Customizing Label Designs and Information The template for your check-in labels can be customised to suit your needs. Under settings > Checkin, there is a section for changing the label templates.

28 From there, you can drag in custom fields to include in the labels and also add a logo to the label. The information on the labels, when printed, will then line up with the information stored for the individual. You can also use the following shortcodes to help format your labels: [b]text Goes Here[/b] Bolds the text between [b] and [/b] [size=??]text Goes Here[/size] Sets the size of the text between the tags to the given value. Please note that the exact size varies, depending on the amount of text on the label. Examples of labels Below are some example labels that have been printed and the template settings that were used to generate these labels. All labels are printed are on a Large Address (70 x 54mm) sized label with no logo. Changing the label size or adding a logo to your label will affect how these are printed. Default Label This is the default label when you create your account. It combines the Full name and security code of the youth checked in. [b][fullname][/b] [security_code] [checkin_room]

29 Allergies and School Grade information The below label includes a bit more information about the youth, including the Age, School Grade and their Allergies. [b][size=30][firstname] [lastname][/size][/b] [security_code] Age: [age] Grade: [school_grade] Allergies: [custom_c942d e5-bd6 [size=20][checkin_room][/size] To use this template you ll need to replace [custom_c942d e5-bd65-06e37142e2e1] with the relevant shortcode for your accounts allergies field. Setting up Print Stations Due to restrictions on what devices can use Dymo software, not all devices can print labels directly. When using these devices, you can still print labels by using a print station. Print stations allow you to check-in using a tablet, and then have the labels printed and collected by your volunteers and parents. Different check-in rooms can be assigned to different print stations, so that when youth and adults are checked into those rooms, the labels are printed at the correct station for that room. Equipment required for a print station Computer capable of running the Dymo Software. (USB port and running Mac OSX, or Windows) A printer connected to the computer.

30 Settings that need to be put in place. In the Check-in settings, which can be found by navigating to the Settings page in the User Nav, you can specify how many print stations you have and what their names are. The different check-in rooms can then be linked to specific print stations.

31 Training Volunteers to use Check-in It is incredibly important to ensure your volunteers are correctly trained in how your church uses the check-in system. Good training helps ensure that your volunteers do the correct thing when checking youth in, and that your youth remain safe. Training Volunteers on how to use Check-in How to make sure youth are being checked out correctly Training Volunteers on how to use Check-in When training your volunteers on how to use the check-in system, there s a number of things that you should keep in mind when training them. Below is a quick checklist that you can use when preparing your training. How many labels need to be printed? If a particular room needs an extra set of labels printed, make sure that your volunteers know this. How to check security codes and session codes and how to recognise the difference between the two If you re using session codes, make sure your volunteers remember to check the session code, not just the names, on any labels they are looking at. Sessions codes change each time a member is checked in. Make sure volunteers know this, and look for the correct session codes. How to make sure youth are being checked out correctly When to use the check-in all button and when to check-in individual youth The Check-in All button will check every person in the family into every available service. What the information on the check-in labels means As the labels can be customised to your needs, your volunteers should know how to read the check-in labels and know what the information on them means.

32 Where print stations are and what the different rooms print to As your volunteers are printing labels out, if the labels are being printed out at print stations in different areas, it s vital that your volunteers know where the print stations are and where they should direct your members to, in order for them to pick up any labels they require If you aren t using room specific print stations, this won t be an issue

33 Part 4 - Pastoral Care Pastoral Care is often key to Youth Ministries maintaining numbers if teens don t feel cared for, they re unlikely to return. Using Groups to structure your pastoral care Groups in Elvanto are useful for separating the youth in your ministry into smaller, more manageable groups, allowing for more personalized and more efficient pastoral care. If your youth ministry uses small groups during their gatherings, this can be a particularly powerful tool for everything from marking attendance, to reporting, to managing People Flows all while making sure no volunteer is overwhelmed by a huge backlog of follow up. Otherwise, whether or not you decide to use Groups is really just a matter of personal preference. Group Categories Group Categories are the best way to set up groups in your youth ministry. Using a single group category (e.g. Youth Small Groups ) allows one person to oversee all the groups, while also keeping the groups inaccessible to those outside the ministry if the access permissions have been set according. Using a single Group Category also allows you to keep your groups fairly uniform, with identical positions between them. Using Reports to strengthen your youth ministry Elvanto reports can serve a variety of purposes in youth ministries. Whether it s developing statistics to see if youth are engaged with what you re doing, or keeping track of any youth who have stopped coming, or just making sure that you don t miss anyone s birthday, reports are a great way to make your ministry better and your life as a ministry leader easier. Built-in Check-in Reports Built-in Check-in Reports give you valuable feedback with very little effort. All you need to do is select the rooms that you want information about. Sometimes, it will be best to go through room by room. Other times (such as an Absentees Report), it will be best to look at all of the rooms together.

34 Overall Check-in Attendance Report This shows a report of overall check-ins over a specific timeframe. It lists rooms, how many checkins, average check-ins and room load. While this report is particularly good for showing growth/ decline in numbers, checking this report regularly will make sure that you don t outgrow the capacity of a room. Room Attendance Report A Room Attendance Report shows people who were checked in over a specific timeframe. It lists rooms and the names of people checked into that room, and can allow you to contact all of their parents in one action. Absentees Report An Absentees Report shows people who have not checked in during a specific date range. Like the Room Attendance Report, this allows you to contact the parents of the youth who were absent. Custom Standard Reports Unlike Built-in Reports, Custom Standard Reports need to be set up the first time they are used. For more information on setting up and using Custom Standard Reports in youth ministries, have a look at this link. Reporting on Youth s Birthdays We all love to have our birthdays celebrated and youth love it even more! We recommend scheduling this report monthly, so that no birthdays are missed. Reporting on Allergies or Special Needs Reporting on Custom Fields, such as Allergies or Special Needs, is particularly useful when planning activities. It ensures that no youth has to miss out because of their individual requirements. Following up youth and their families Contacting the parents of youth The easiest way to contact the parents of youth is to do an advanced search under the people widget. You can search for all parents of youth, or just the parents of youth that are a certain age or at a certain location.

35 Working with parents who are not in the church Parents who are not in the church can still be added as contacts. And while they are contacts, they do not contribute to billing. But they can be contacted just like any other parents of youth. Using People Flows to follow up new families People Flows is a handy tool that can automatically remind you to do things. For example, if a youth comes to their first service or event, People Flows can remind you to send their parents an , SMS or call them.

36 Groups Groups are an incredibly convenient way to structure all pastoral care, reporting and follow up for your youth ministry. Let s have a closer look at them! Setting up a Group Category Setting up a Group Category allows you to separate the Groups in your youth ministry from the rest of your church s Groups. When setting up a Group Category, you have two main things to consider: what positions you want filled in the Group; and, who, when, and for what do you want to be notified. Positions By default, all Group categories will suggest a Leader and Assistant Leader position. Depending on the size of each group, however, you may wish to only have one Leader, or to divide the positions into different responsibilities (e.g. Prayer/Care Leader, and Birthday Keeper ). Notifications You ll also have the opportunity to set up notifications. For when someone is added, or when a Group Report is submitted, you have two options: notify admins, and notify leaders. Your decision here normally comes down to whether any action needs to be taken when one of these things happens. For example, if your Group Leaders are pretty autonomous, you may not be worried about being notified when a Group Report is submitted. But, if a Group Report is supposed to be followed up (potentially using a People Flow) a notification might be useful, so that the admin can check the relevant people flow in a few days to make sure that People are being progressed through the process. My youth ministry doesn t use small groups If your youth ministry doesn t use small groups, there are a few things to consider with whether you want to use Groups to structure at all. Often, though, it is still useful to breakdown your ministry into smaller, more manageable bits, so that no one misses out on your care. If your pastoral care already runs like a well-oiled machine, then you may not need to worry about Groups. Or if pastoral care is deliberately not a part of your ministry, then you definitely don t. Otherwise, taking the time to set up Groups will be very helpful.

37 Often the easiest way to do this is just by categorizing your youth by something simple: like age, gender, school, or school year (or any combination of these, if you have a larger ministry). Having one person with a defined group of people to care for will encourage a greater level of care, and prevent individuals from being left out. For a step-by-step walkthrough on setting up a Group Category, visit this link.

38 Reporting on Youth Reporting, when used effectively, is a huge advantage to your church s youth ministries. Here s a few tips on how to report effectively. Scheduling Reports Reports, once set up, can be automatically ed to people on a regular basis. To do so, simply find the report on the reports page, and click on the link underneath the report title. This will then give you a variety of options about how frequently, at what time, and to whom you want the sent. For reports done on a regular basis, such as a birthdays report or an attendance report, we recommend scheduling the reports. Custom Fields Custom fields are extra bits of information that you think are good to collect. Allergies, for example, need to be set up as a custom field. You can read about how to set up a custom field at this link. Custom fields can be set up in a variety of ways, depending on how many options there may be. Here s a few examples of things that you might use a custom field for, and how to best set it up. Media Permissions Media Permissions, in most cases, is opt-in/opt-out. This is best done with a Checkbox custom field. If the parents are happy for you to take pictures of, or otherwise record their youth, then they can check the box, and everyone knows that it s permissible to take a photo of their child doing an activity. Interests You can set up interests in a variety of different ways, but the best way is to set up a Drop Down (can select many) custom field. In this, you can list a multiple different areas animals, sport, music, computer games, etc. and the children could select as many as they are interested in. This can help you determine what to plan for your activities.

39 Special Requirements Some youth have conditions that need special attention. And while you could just record the name of their condition, it s often simpler just to record what needs to be done/avoided. To best do this, set up a Text Field (multiple lines) custom field, and let the parents fill out their requirements. This can also be used to facilitate injuries, such as concussion, which require the youth to not play sports, or run around for a period of time. Just make sure that you update the information when the youth is well again. Sharing Reports By default, a generated report is private only its creator can view it. To send the report to other leaders, you have to share the report with them. You can do this when you generate the report, by clicking the share button at the top right. Or you can also do this on the reports page, by clicking sharing underneath the report title.

40 Following up Youth and Their Families With the aid of Reports and People Flows, Elvanto makes following up people incredibly easy. Use People Views to add youth/parents to People Flows People Views is the fastest way to affect a lot of changes to a lot of people. Simply go to People, and select the dropdown menu, views, and choose which selection of people you want to view. If a report is also set up as a People View (the default setting), then it will appear in the views menu. People Views (and advanced searches) work in the same way as reports, except they allow you to perform actions for the people who appear in the results. One of the actions you can perform is Add to People Flow. To do this, generate the People View, check the box (which will select all the results) at the top left of the results, and then click the Mass Manage button that will appear above the table header. Then you can send all of the results to a People Flow. For more information on how to add people to People Flows, have a look at this link. Use People Flows to follow up parents. People Flows are a great way to keep track of you who are following up, and how well you are doing it. A People Flow for following up parents is very easy to set up and use. Setting Up A People Flow First, go to People, selecting Flows in the drop down menu. Add a new flow. The set-up page for a People Flow allows you to set someone over everything in that flow, and define who can be added to it. Once you ve made a flow, you still need to add steps. For a basic follow up, you only need one step: Call the parents. Or you can set it up to SMS the parents automatically. If your follow up process is more complicated, you can set up a People Flow with as many steps as you like, even accounting for different responses from people if a different action is required. For more about setting up steps in a People Flow, take a look at this link.

41 Using a People Flow Once you ve set up your People Flow and started adding people to it, you can perform action for those people. There s two main ways to do so. The first is to select people from the People Flow individually, and perform actions as you do what s required in the step. The next is to select using the select all checkbox at the top left of the table everyone in a step (you can also deselect individuals once you ve selected everyone), and Mass Manage them as you do what s required in the step.

42 Part 5 - Youth Services Services can be a valuable feature for your Youth Ministries, especially in the way it assists with your planning. However, not all Youth Ministries will find this feature valuable. How to tell if your Youth Ministry should be using Services The easiest way to tell if your Youth Ministry should use Services is by figuring out whether it works more like a group or more like a church service. Use this guide to figure out which one your Youth Ministry falls under. Groups Have very flexible plans, and often don t follow a definite form week-to-week Are mostly planned or facilitated by one person Have very little delegation of roles and responsibilities Services Have a more rigid structure, that is more-or-less the same each time Are often planned and facilitated by multiple people Require delegation of multiple roles and responsibilities In more technical detail: because Services offer more features than Groups, you need to decide whether you are actually going to use the features (otherwise, it will be extra work for little reward). Services allow you to make Plans, import Songs into the Service, and assign Volunteers. If you don t think your Youth Ministry is a Service, then you shouldn t worry about this Part. Otherwise, read on!

43 Setting up Youth Services Like many features in Elvanto, you ll get the most out of Services if you set them up well. Before using Services, you ll probably need to set up a Youth Department, and a new Service Type. Youth Department Unless you re going to be using exactly the same people to run worship at your Youth Ministry as any other service in your church, you re going to need a new Youth Department. For a refresher on what Departments are, and how they work, check out this link. Building your Youth Department When building your Youth Department, having all the necessary positions available is important so that you can roster all your volunteers appropriately. Positions are the actual roles that people take on during the service. Remember: you can change how many people can be rostered on to a position in the Service Type. Categorize these positions into sub-departments in a way that makes sense to you. For example, if your Youth Ministry has live worship, then you ll want a Worship sub-department. You may also want a Hosting sub-department for volunteers who welcome Youth and sign them in, and an Activities sub-department for those who are responsible for planning the different games you run during the service. Ultimately, though, your sub-departments will probably be dictated by the size of your team of volunteers. For example, if you run a small Youth Ministry with eight leaders, you might have a Worship sub-department, and a Facilitators sub-department. Worship is for the live band, and Facilitators is for all the other positions. Making sure you ve got all your positions covered The easiest way to make sure you ve got all your positions up-to-date in Elvanto is to check against your old rosters. Youth Service Type Again, unless your Youth Service runs exactly the same as another Service and uses the same volunteer base, you re going to want to create a new Service Type. And, depending on how you run your Youth Ministry, you may even want to set up multiple Service Types. In case you haven t already, you can get a quick overview of setting up Service Types at this link.