Even though Young Life is especially for kids, parents and other adults in the community are important to Young Life. Adults can support Young Life in a variety of ways — by becoming a volunteer leader or committee member, by attending a Young Life fund-raising event, by hosting Young Life or by simply telling others in the community about Young Life and its commitment to kids.

An important part of our committment to kids is how we keep kids safe. Our staff and volunteer leaders know they are responsible for modeling lives of hope and integrity.Young Life's Human Resources department has developed missionwide policies and procedures to ensure that kids are protected when they are with Young Life staff and/or leaders as well as when kids are part of Young Life'sponsored activities.

Listed below are the standard practices Young Life employs to keep kids safe:

All potential Young Life staff and leaders go through a careful screening process that consists of an application, interview(s) and character references. Criminal background checks are completed on all staff and volunteers.

As part of the screening process, potential employees and volunteer leaders are given Young Life’s Faith and Conduct Policy Packets. These packets include Young Life’s: 
Statement of Faith
Mission Statement
Sexual Misconduct Policy
Sexual Harassment Policy
Conflict Resolution Guidelines

The Faith and Conduct Policies are also accompanied by an Acknowledgment Form that potential employees and leaders sign indicating they have read, believe in and agree to support the Statement of Faith and Mission Purpose Statement. Their signature also indicates they understand and agree to abide by the Misconduct, Sexual Harassment and Guidelines for Conflict Resolution policies.

Applicants also complete a Background Questionnaire in which applicants must disclose, as permitted by state law, any criminal convictions, criminal charges, unlawful misconduct allegations regarding children or sexual misconduct as well as any dismissal or reprimand from a church, denomination or other religious organization because of sexual misconduct or inappropriate, immoral behavior.

Young Life is structured so that field staff and volunteer leaders all have trained supervisors.

The Human Resources department trains new Young Life field staff on maintaining appropriate boundaries in relationships with kids. The Human Resources department also trains area directors on how to screen and train their volunteer leaders.

Preamble

All those who participate in the ongoing work and witness of Young Life shall be in sympathy with its central purpose of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In order to qualify for office, members of the Board of Directors, members of the regular and volunteer staff and professors at the Young Life Institute shall subscribe to the following articles of faith:

Article I
The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, being given by divine inspiration, are the Word of God, the final and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

Article II
In the Scriptures, God reveals Himself as the living and true God, Creator of all things. Perfect in love and righteous in all His ways, this one God exists eternally as a Trinity of persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Article III
God made man in His image that He might have fellowship with him. Being estranged from God by his disobedience, sinful man is incapable of a right relationship to God apart from divine grace.

Article IV
The only Mediator between God and man is Jesus Christ our Lord, God’s eternal Son, who as man fully shared and fulfilled our humanity in a life of perfect obedience.

Article V
By His death in our place, Jesus revealed the divine love and upheld divine justice, removing our guilt and reconciling us to God. Having risen bodily from the dead and ascended into heaven, He rules as Lord over all and intercedes for us as our Great High Priest.

Article VI
The Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the Gospel, renews our hearts, persuading us to repent of our sins and confess Jesus as Lord. By the same Spirit, we are led to trust in divine mercy, whereby we are forgiven all our sins, justified by faith through the merit of Christ our Savior, adopted into God’s family as His children and enabled so to live in the world that men may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.

Article VII
God, by His Word and Spirit, calls sinful men into the fellowship of Christ’s body. Thus He creates the one holy, catholic and apostolic church, united in the bonds of love, endowed with the gifts of the Spirit and summoned by Christ to preach the Gospel and to administer the sacraments, to relieve human need and to strive for social justice.

Article VIII
God’s redemptive purpose will be consummated by the return of Christ to raise the dead, judge all men and establish His glorious kingdom. Those who are apart from Christ shall be eternally separated from God’s presence, but the righteous shall live and reign with Him forever.

* From Young Life Bylaws, Article IX