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Safety and Safeguarding in Your Prayer Room
Prayer rooms

Safety and Safeguarding in Your Prayer Room

When you're planning your 24-7 prayer room, it's important to make sure that it is safe to use and that you and your community are following your local and national safeguarding laws and guidelines.

When you’re planning your 24-7 Prayer room, it’s important to make sure that it is safe to use and that you and your community are following your local and national safeguarding laws and guidelines.

Please note: As a church or organisation, it is your responsibility to ensure that anyone using your prayer room is effectively protected from harm. 24-7 Prayer carries no legal or safeguarding responsibility for any prayer room or activity (either in the UK or any other country) that is run under the name of 24-7 Prayer and/or registered on the 24-7 Prayer website.

We have put together some helpful questions to consider as you plan:

Location and Building 

  • Is there an on-call team who are available to contact in case of emergency? 
  • Is it safe for individuals to be alone in the room?  
  • Does the prayer room access other parts of the building that need to be locked off? 
  • How will people travel to and from the prayer room? 
  • How easy is it to gain access to the prayer room? Is it accessible to a variety of needs? 
  • Is the entrance well-lit and could the door be locked or secured? 
  • Do you need to send out an access code to people who have booked a slot? Do you need to change the code regularly? 
  • Will there be any noise disturbance for both those in the prayer room and neighbours? 

Nighttime

  • Would you like to suggest a minimum age for night-time slots, or suggest people pray in pairs after dark?  
  • How safe is it to travel at night? If it’s not safe to be in the prayer room at night, could you have the night-time slots filled from people’s homes? 
  • If necessary, have you informed neighbours that people may be coming and going quietly throughout the night? 

Access

  • Are you going to allow people who have not booked a slot to access the space? If no, how will you prevent this from happening? If yes, what supervision will you offer? 
  • If the next person doesn’t show up for their slot, what should the previous person do? 
  • Could you install a doorbell to be rung when the next person arrives, or have someone on welcoming duty so there are always two people in the building?  
  • Have you considered a video doorbell? 
  • Do you have a team of people on stand-by to fill empty slots? 

Comfort breaks 

  • Does the space you are using have access to toilets? 
  • Is there access to water for making drinks, washing paint brushes etc? 

Room safety 

  • Has a risk assessment been performed considering fire hazards such as candles, trip hazards such as wires, and other safety hazards in the room? Have you considered securing large items in place with cable ties, taping down wires, and replacing open flames with electrical substitutes? 
  • What other potential risks are presented by the design of the room and how could you minimise them and alert those praying to the hazard? 
  • Are there clearly marked fire exits? 
  • Are there clearly displayed emergency numbers? 
  • Is there a clearly marked first aid kit available? 
  • Are fire exits accessible and clearly marked?  
  • Is there a way of contacting someone for help?  
  • Is there an emergency phone number clearly displayed?  

Children and young people 

  • How will you invite young people and children to engage in the prayer room?  
  • Is it safe for young people to be in the prayer room on their own or do they need supervision?  
  • Have you created family-themed slots to safely invite children to engage with the prayer room? 
  • What is your approach to young people being in a room with an adult?  
  • Is your whole prayer room team aware of your church’s child safeguarding policy? 
  • Has your prayer room plan been checked by your safeguarding officer or equivalent authority? 
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