ParishSOFT’s Safe Environment Program (SEP) is designed to help organizations create a culture of safe conduct and protect the children and adults they serve by ensuring that their employees, staff, and volunteers exemplify Christian ethics, civil law compliance, and personal integrity. SEP can meet the needs of an entire diocese, including all organizations, parishes, and schools situated within, as well as the needs of individual organizations, such as a standalone parish or school.
This article provides a general overview of the SEP environment and introduces you to the core framework components and features that define the program.
Overview of the Safe Environment Program (SEP)
ParishSOFT's SEP was developed to support concepts outlined in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The goal of this charter is to prevent harm and create a safe environment for young people and vulnerable adults participating in church-related activities and enrolled in Catholic schools. The charter requires background checks, screenings, and Safe Environment Program training for all employees—including clergy—who interact with, care for, and/or supervise children and at-risk adults. The USCCB provides policies and protocols on standards of behavior and guidelines for responding to allegations and reporting abuse incidents to civil authorities.
Key Features of ParishSOFT's Safe Environment Program
The key features of ParishSOFT Safe Environment Program are outlined below:
- Provides a centralized platform that enables an organization to develop a background check system based on its own policies, manage and track individuals' completion and expiration status of requirements, and report on screening progress.
- Enables an organization to build and customize requirements (for example, must have a drivers' license, must pass a drug test, or must complete the Ethics and Integrity workshop) based on positions (for example, bus driver, nurse, catechist) and automatically link staff and volunteers to requirements based on their assigned positions.
- Currently integrates with background check services provided by Protect My Ministry. Future plans include integrating with training solutions offered by third-party providers.
- Provides exact counts that must be submitted to the USCCB's annual audit to verify compliance with the Charter of Protection of Children and Young People. Every diocese in the United States must undergo yearly audits.
Licensing
ParishSOFT’s SEP is a separately sold and licensed product. A diocese can purchase SEP for all parishes under its direction. A standalone parish can purchase SEP for its own use.
For product and licensing information, contact ParishSOFT Sales.
Framework for Tracking Screening and Training Progress
ParishSOFT’s SEP provides a framework that organizations can use to implement and enforce their standards for safeguarding and protecting children, youth, and vulnerable adults. Using the program's features and functions, staff with the appropriate permissions can establish and manage crucial background check requirements and other broader-based screening requirements for employees, such as education, certifications, and training. After data is entered into the system, the program organizes it for you and tracks each individual's screening and/or training progress from start to completion. Information is instantly available through a secure website and accessible to authorized users who can use it to make safe recruitment, selection, and retention decisions about staff and volunteers who have contact with children, young people, and at-risk adults across a diocese or within a standalone parish.
SEP does not include preset or fixed screening and training requirements. Each diocese or organization determines its own screening policies, decides which clearances are appropriate for its staff and volunteer positions, and sets up the program accordingly. If your organization does not currently have safe environment policies in place that set standards for behavior, we recommend that you refer to the procedures provided in the initial setup to help you formulate a policy. You must have a clear understanding of your organization's background screening and training policies before you begin to set up and use the program.
Position-Based Requirements
SEP creates a framework of requirements based on types of positions. Staff and volunteers in a diocese often times hold one or more positions within a diocese, and each of those positions can have its own set of requirements. For example, a volunteer who works on the grounds probably has a different set of requirements from a professional staffer who directly interacts with children. SEP lets you create as many position profiles as needed by your organization. For each position profile you create, you will specify all the requirements and training criteria to fulfill the responsibilities of the position. Later, when you add individuals to SEP and assign them to a position, the system automatically assigns them the requirements and trainings associated with the position.
Shared Screening Results
An individual within a diocese or a standalone organization needs to pass a given requirement only once unless the requirement does not remain valid indefinitely, or in other words, expires and needs to be renewed. After a person passes a specific screening, the “passed” result is distributed across all assignments held by the individual for which the screening was specified as a requirement. For example, if a psychological assessment is required for each of the assignments held by an individual in several organizations within a diocese, the system records the status of the requirement as met and passed, pending, or failed for each assignment that requires the assessment.
SEP enables you to specify due dates for screenings and requirements as well as expiration dates to indicate when they must be repeated. After you set up the system and enter individuals into SEP, the program updates you on each individual's progress through automated alerts and due date reminders. You can then use SEP's built-in email feature to send a quick friendly reminder email to individuals to let them know when a due date is coming up or when a deadline was missed.
Role-Based Permissions
SEP uses role-based permissions to control the users' ability to view and modify SEP data. What every SEP user can see and do with SEP data is determined by their assigned role, and that role should be assigned based on their job responsibilities and authority within the organization. By tying permissions to roles, you can then grant employees and volunteers who perform the same or similar tasks within your organization the same set of permissions.
Getting Started
To get started, you must first set up SEP. Find out how to set up the program by following the instructions in this article: Initial Set Up and Configuration of Safe Environment.
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