Replies from children, and how they are approved

Safe Messaging is one-way as standard, and most churches will want to leave it that way. But you can allow children to reply, and if you are thinking about it, this is what actually happens.

The rules, whichever setting you choose

• A child can only reply to a message that has already been approved and delivered to them. There is no way for a child to start a conversation with an adult.
• A child’s reply is held for their parent or guardian to approve, in exactly the same way as a leader’s message, on the same expiry clock. If nobody approves it in time, it is not delivered. See What a parent sees, and how they approve a message.
• Replies appear in your Safe Messages record like everything else, so your Safeguarding Lead sees what a child sends as well as what they receive.
• Replies do not count against the weekly limit. That only counts messages a leader sends.

So even with replies switched on, there is no unsupervised back-and-forth. Both sides of every conversation pass through a parent.

Choosing the setting

The setting is in Site Settings, then General, then Safe Messaging, under Allow children to reply to messages from adults. There are three choices. See How to choose your Safe Messaging settings for the rest of that page.

• No. The default. Children cannot reply at all.
• Children over 13. Only children aged 13 and over can reply. A child with no date of birth on record is treated as under 13.
• All children. Any child can reply.

Before you switch it on

Treat this as a safeguarding decision rather than a settings change, because that is what it is.

1. Talk it through with your Safeguarding Lead, not just your administrator.
2. Check your denomination’s or governing body’s guidance on two-way contact with children. See Safe Messaging and your safeguarding policy.
3. Decide what your leaders should do if a child replies with something that concerns them, and make sure they know.
4. Tell parents what you have changed and why, before they discover it. Our guide for parents and guardians is written to be sent to families.
5. Minute the decision, so there is a record of the church having chosen rather than the setting having drifted.

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Good to know

• Changing the setting takes effect from that point on. It does not change messages already sent.
• The strongest reason to leave replies off is that it removes a whole category of risk rather than managing it. The strongest reason to turn them on is that a young person who can answer feels heard rather than broadcast at. Both are real, which is why this is your church’s decision and not ours.
• If a child’s reply raises a safeguarding concern, that goes straight to your Safeguarding Lead and follows your normal safeguarding process. Nothing about Safe Messaging changes that, and a message in the app is never a substitute for reporting.
• Children under 13 ordinarily have no login of their own, so in practice the ‘All children’ setting mainly affects families where a parent has chosen to let a younger child use their own account.