“Can I see an example of the permission slips you use for your youth group?” This is a question I see quite often within youth pastor groups online. While the question itself is awesome—I love their desire to be a wise leader—I would argue this is the wrong place to go for help.
Let me explain.
Back in the day, youth pastors didn’t use permission slips. It was all about trust. And when they finally did start using them, it was often a little slip of paper that parents would sign to give the church permission to take their kid on a trip.
Fast forward, and we are in a completely different world. Now, we need to think about so much more. In addition to permission for said trip, we need to have parents/guardians sign waivers for medical, photography/videography release forms, and more. On top of that, we need to have access to those waivers at all times, so we need to figure out a digital way of collecting and storing them.
So while many of you might have clicked on this to get a simple permission slip to copy for your youth group, I’m sorry to disappoint. Instead, I highly recommend the following:
- Start by checking with your church’s insurance company, as they often have ones they want you to use.
- Consult experts in this area. Here are a few suggestions:
- Free Church Forms has many sample forms available.
- Church Law & Tax has a detailed overview on waivers and release forms available for purchase.
- Brotherhood Mutual, Church Mutual, and GuideOne Insurance have forms, checklists, sample agreements, and agents to help you.
- As long as your insurance company and attorney is okay with it, consider switching to an annual waiver that covers medical, photography, etc. so parents/guardians don’t have to fill out a new one each trip (unless their info changes).
- Consider moving the forms and waivers online, or at least having a way to submit it online (see below for a couple suggestions).
- Once you have your waiver ready, have your church’s insurance company and attorney look over it again for approval (do this each year).
If you’re looking for some ways to move your forms online, here are a couple ideas:
- Submit PDF: If you’re not ready to move to a fully online form, I recommend having your form available via PDF on your church’s website. If you use something like Adobe Acrobat, you can also make it possible for people to fill it out on their computer, tablet, or phone. Once families fill out the form and sign it, they can either turn it in manually, via email, or submit it online. If you’re looking for a simple way to do this, you can create a Google Form and include a question that allows for uploading files. Not only will this cut down on paperwork, Google will place all of these uploaded files in one Google Drive folder for you to easily access from anywhere.
- Online Form: If you would rather have the entire process be online, there are a number of options available. Some church management systems (i.e. Planning Center, Church Community Builder, One Church) have started to integrate permission slips and waivers within their online registration process, so make sure you look into what your church currently uses. If you don’t have something built in, you can use something like Jotform, Docusign, or even Google Forms. Just make sure your church’s insurance company and attorney approve of it, especially the way you plan to do the e-signature from the parent/guardian.
While our primary goal as youth pastors should be to help students know Jesus and grow in their faith, we are also responsible for keeping them as safe as we can when they are in our care. Their parents/guardians are trusting their kids to our care. And we should never take that lightly. So do your due diligence by preparing a strong permission slip and waiver system that not only checks the needed boxes for safety and doesn’t overwhelm you or the parents/guardians, but also appeases your insurance company and attorney.
Steve Cullum 