Experience.FellowshipOne.com

I am curious as to what most of the rest of you are doing with medical release forms.  Specifically when it involves an offsite youth event which would require this release as part of the registration process.  Are the electronic signatures being used making it a total online registration process? Or are churches concerned about any legal issues and printing out a hard copy to be signed.

 

We currently have our forms posted online, and require that the hard copy be turned into complete the requirements for camps, and off campus events.

FT Staff (Delivery Mgrs or Training Staff) could you post a best practice on this issue.  Our student ministry team is asking the same question... Use questions, put in legal permission language?  With user having to type their name in the answer block i.e. "As the parent/guardian, I grant xyz permission by entering my name here: _________".  I know some are concerned that kids can create their own web account and grant permission themselves... but kids can also create a signature forgery too... We could send a confirmation email to the parent(s) email addresses on file in F1 confirming their permission for the medical / parental release... Thoughts?

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J.Mac Brown
Fellowship Bible Church
www.fellowshipnashville.org

For those under 18... 

We are still requiring a hard copy form to be turned in. They receive a link for this form in the confirmation email that we get.

We also use a yearly waiver that parents can sign once a year giving permission for any event. If they have a yearly waiver on file, than we don't need anything else.

For those over 18...we just write up the release in the question instruction section. The question is then, "do you agree with the conditions of the medical release and liability form?" and they answer using a drop down box of yes/no.

 

This is still an open issue for churches using WebLink for youth events. It is a challenge getting hard-copies back to the church, which bogs down launch/startup of events like VBS (while we "finish" registration tasks).  Online would make things easier.

Church Ministry/Technical staff - I am interested in how you handle this. 

Fellowship Tech - From your cross-church perspective, is anyone handling this 100% online?

We still require hard copies.  Most hospitals require a parent signature to treat the child, so we have not figured out a way to get that without keeping up with hard copies.