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The instructions below are specific to Collegiate LT Assessment. But, the process would be similar for other events where Reliant was administering the application for approval to be attending the program.


Concerned Assessments go through multiple stages of Review. 

Reliant reviews event applications and accepts the event participants. If there are no concerns then Reliant will accept the applicant without any further steps needed. If a few smaller concerns are found, Reliant may still accept with no further review needed. 

Confidentiality Agreement

CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT

Reliant needs to first verify that the program participant's assessment shows that they have responded with a YES to the Confidentiality Agreement on the event assessment.  (We have added this new question to the assessment in the AGREEMENT Section asking for the participant's permission to discuss their assessment answers with their local pastor or named reference.) We will be required to honor their answer.  If they respond NO, then Reliant will inform the collegiate reviewer that we see a concern but since they have answered the Confidentiality question with NO we do not have permission to discuss this further.  Reliant will then give their recommendation to the collegiate reviewer and program director who can decide if they would like to move forward with the acceptance. 

If noteworthy concerns are found then the assessment is sent to the Collegiate Review stage. This typically means the Collegiate Reviewer will talk with the local pastor about the concerns and usually will ask the local pastor to meet with the applicant to discuss these concerns. 


If the concerns are more serious, then the assessment is moved into the National Review stage. The Collegiate Reviewer will first confirm that the LT director would like to move forward. If so, then the national reviewers are asked to approve the applicant. The national reviewers consist of Reliant leadership and Collegiate national leadership (national LT director and a member of the collegiate national board). 

Acceptance Criteria

ACCEPTANCE FOR PARTICIPANTS WITH NO CONCERNS

Reliant will automatically accept all participants that have no concerns on their application. 

There are also a few smaller more frequently seen concerns listed below that typically appear on applications. It is Reliant’s understanding that in these scenarios the collegiate reviewer does not need to be notified and that acceptance is considered approved without notifying any further reviewers and is simply accepted with no questions by Reliant.  

  • If a participant mentions that they have struggled with slipping once or twice with underage drinking 

  • If they have slipped once sexual purity but it is no longer a struggle

  • If they struggle with masturbation but have accountability


What happens if an applicant lies on their assessment? 

For reference, there was an applicant who lied on their application and was caught due to a discrepancy between what the LT applicant said and the spiritual reference said. 

This was the discussion/decision result.

"We know that we love all these folks and want the best for them spiritually - but our responsibility is really just to determine if they are suitable for LT. At some point what we have to decide is......is knowingly lying on your application a disqualifying behavior or not? I like how we allowed there be some space for explanation (possibilities of miscommunication etc...) but I’m not sure exactly what mitigating circumstances were presented here that we would determine a ‘redo’ is in order. As a read the email thread what is saw was... this participant confessed after they got caught & feels bad.  The church leaders like this participant and believe in them (which is wonderful but not surprising). I’m not all that excited about trying to determine the sincerity of an applicant’s repentance.  I’m not sure we would ever be able to determine that - especially from afar - and I’m not even sure it’s our place. But I’d probably lean more towards a policy of - in the absence of extenuating circumstances - deceit in your LT application will result in a denial of admission / deferral til the following year."

Therefore, it was agreed upon that if an LT participant lies on their application and there weren't extenuating circumstances the result will be that they can not attend LT the program.


What happens if an applicant does not want to list their struggles on the assessment? 

There have been instances where participants did not feel comfortable sharing all of their struggles online in the assessment. We will then work with the local church to gather that information in person with the applicant. Here is a section of an email that was sent to an applicant who sent an email to Reliant saying that they did not feel comfortable with sharing online and requested just telling their local church pastor and not Reliant.

...The LT program is an event administrated by both Reliant and Collegiate. Your church pastor is both a pastor for the Collegiate network and he is employed by Reliant and his role this summer is Collegiate LT director. Reliant does a lot of the administrative work for the Collegiate missionaries and we run the behind the scenes admin for the LT programs. In order for Reliant to be able to provide liability insurance for the LT programs we have to have an assessment and a review vetting process for all of our applicants that helps us make sure the Leadership Training program (the summer ministry designed to help train leaders for our local churches) is the best fit for those applying.

I can understand the concern for putting your struggles online in this day and age. So, Reliant would be fine with you meeting with a local church leader to share your answers in person if that would make you feel more comfortable with sharing.  However, because Reliant is the administrator for the event, that local church leader will then need to share what you tell him with Reliant before we could move forward with the assessment process. He can speak in generalities (we do not need specific details), but we do need to know for insurance and liability reasons if there are any concerns.  So, I wanted to make sure that you understood and knew that your church leader would still be sharing that information with Reliant after you share it with him.

ACCEPTANCE CONCERNS DECIDED ON THE COLLEGIATE REVIEW LEVEL

There may be other concern scenarios where Reliant would like the Collegiate Reviewer to decide and work together with the program director and/or local pastor to be aware and to give their consent before approval/acceptance.

Collegiate Reviewer may reach out to the local church leadership to follow up with an applicant

COLLEGIATE REVIEWERS DISCUSSES WITH LOCAL PASTOR/SPIRITUAL REFERENCES

Here are steps that we suggest the Collegiate Reviewer taking once they receive an email from Reliant saying they have a concerned participant that warrants follow-up with the local pastor/spiritual reference and necessitates meeting one on one with the participant to discuss the concerns.

  • Text the local pastor or spiritual reference listed on the application to set up a time to discuss the concerns.
  • Call and talk through the concerns with the pastor/spiritual reference and explain the below expectations. 

-Ask them to help you know more about who the person is and what you would be getting into by accepting them into the program. 
-Discuss specific questions that you would want them to ask the participant in regards to the specific concerns.
-Remind them to take notes and report back via email so that we have written documentation about how we handled the concern.
-Explain the process to them so that they know what our expectations are:

    • We are asking them to follow up one on one with the concerned participant and discuss the concerns in more detail. We want to explain to the participant that we care about them and our heart is to help them have a good experience during the program and we want to figure out the best place for them if that's to attend or not to attend the program. 
    • If we feel like the best place is the attend the program, then let them know there will likely be conditions put in place for them to follow (for example meeting with a staff member bi-weekly for accountability and/or asking them to refrain from what they are doing, etc.)  and make sure that they are willing to agree to those conditions. 
    • Let the participant know that if we decide to move forward with acceptance, they will be receiving a conditional email. The email will sound more formal and perhaps a little intense and will list policies and conditions that we are asking them to agree to follow. The wording on the email has been created for liability reasons so it will sound more legal and less friendly so we just want to let them know so that they are not surprised by the way it is worded. 
  • After the call with the local pastor or spiritual reference, send an email to them explaining everything that was just discussed over the phone again as a way to remind them in written form what you discussed. Ask them to report back details from the conversation with the participant by replying back to this email so that we have it documented in written form the student's responses and the pastor/spiritual reference's recommendation of whether or not they feel like we should accept the participant  
  • The director would then forward that email along with the director's recommendation and a list of any conditions the director recommends to Reliant (and Collegiate NEB member for LT programs). Reliant will then review the situation and decide if additional conditions need to be added and whether or not they agree with the recommendation to move forward with the acceptance. 
  • If Reliant decides to move forward with the conditional acceptance, the director would then assign a staff accountability person to meet with the participant and hold the participant accountable during the program to the conditions that have been put in place. We suggest finding someone who has a shepherd's heart and also clearly identify this as part of the role prior to the beginning of the program. If possible, have the staff member reach out to the participant before they arrive at the program to begin discussions and gain trust. 


Here's an example of a follow-up between a local church leadership and the Collegiate reviewer for LT and a participant with emotional concerns. Reliant asked them to find out more about the frequency and severity of panic attacks that the student had listed on her application. The Collegiate reviewer called the leader to discuss it and then followed up with this email to help remind them of what they had discussed. The leader then added the answers from the student (in bold) to the email based on the discussion with the student.  

Like we talked about on the phone, I’d love for you to set up a time to meet with this student as soon as you can.  In this meeting please let her know and ask about these things:
1.  Tell her we are very excited that she wants to come to LT.  We hope that it will be an amazing summer for her!
2.  Let her know that on her application she mentioned that she has about 2-3 panic attacks per month.  We want her to be set up to have a great summer and to be cared for by us, the staff.
        a.  Ask her what her panic attacks looks like.

She said she experiences a rapid heart rate/ heart racing, dizziness/feels like the room is spinning, difficulty breathing. She said that 2-3 times a month number was her best estimate/average at the time, but that she has experienced fewer lately.

  1. Ask her how long they typically last

She said they typically last about 5-10 minutes depending on how quickly she is able to remove herself from the situation. She said when these occur, she tries to leave the environment/ situation, focus on her breathing and meditating on what she is feeling and why.

  1. Ask her if it would serve her to have an older staff woman be available for her that she can look to in times of need.  I (LT director) would assign someone and recommend that they meet in the first couple days of LT and for that staff member to check in during the first 3 weeks.

Yes, she’s very open to this!

Let us know how she responds.  The emphasis is that we really want to care for her during her time out here this summer!!!


Those scenarios include, but are not limited to:

  • Depression/anxiety (seeing a counselor and/or taking medication but it seems under control)

  • Alcohol usage (habitual underage drinking and/or lack of seeing underage drinking as an issue)

  • Sexual purity (continued issue and/or no accountability listed)

  • Pornography/masturbation (continued issue and/or no accountability listed),

  • Multiple concerns listed

  • Spiritual reference is unaware of the struggles listed by the participant

  • or the spiritual reference listed struggles that the participant did not.

We have had a few national reviews where we uncover that they have struggled with suicidal concerns prior to 6 months ago. As a formality, we said that all of those still needed a national review before moving forward. The heart behind that was related to how severe the past self-harm struggle was, how close to 6 months ago it occurred, do they still have suicidal thoughts, etc. and to show that we did our due diligence by having multiple eyes on it before acceptance.

However, if the Collegiate reviewer finds out that there are no current self-harm thoughts and a normal acceptance is recommended we do not need to present this concern to the National Reviewers. This would be only for those that Collegiate Reviews recommend as normal acceptance (no conditions at all for acceptance) because the self-harm (thoughts or actions) is no longer happening. If self-harm is still somewhat in the picture and they are recommending conditions it would still come to national review for more eyes to view the situation.

We want to leave the final acceptance decision of these concerns in the hands of the Collegiate Reviewer and local pastor and director that will be with the participant all summer.

ACCEPTANCE CONCERNS DECIDED ON THE NATIONAL REVIEW TEAM LEVEL

Those scenarios include, but are not limited to: 

  • severe depression/anxiety (hospitalized, panic attacks)
  • any kind of self harm/abuse (eating disorders, cutting, etc.)
  • suicidal thoughts or attempts
  • substance abuse (drunkenness, prescription drug abuse, etc.)
  • illegal drugs
  • sexual addiction
  • parental issues
  • multiple (more serious) concerns listed
  • their spiritual reference is unaware of the serious struggles listed by the participant
  • or their spiritual reference listed more serious concerns that the participant did not.  



With any of the above concerns, we want to create information email trails to be able to provide legal protection for Reliant, Collegiate, and the LT program to prove we did our due diligence in vetting this participant with the additional follow up that was done by the Collegiate reviewer with the local pastor and the participant. Reliant will offer candid thoughts (speaking from a legal liability standpoint) prior to potential acceptance. It will almost always include a conditional acceptance from Reliant and those conditions are sent to the participant which strengthens our written legal protection for the program to show that we have diligently vetted the participant. 

For those struggling with emotional issues or self-harm there may be additional steps taken prior to acceptance such as asking a counselor's opinion or having them continue counseling over the summer.  See Conditions for Acceptance for more details on conditions and the conditional acceptance email.



ACCEPTANCE OF A MINOR

There have been times where a participant under 18 desires to attend the program. Lt@reliant.org will be notified during the assessment process and will reach out to the LT director to let them know. 

In the case of the Collegiate LT program this happens often with children of Reliant missionaries who are also attending the program with their parents wanting to be participants. The YMCA has been known to hire participants under the age of 18 for the Collegiate LT participants. However, the YMCA is not legally allowed to let them live in their provided employee housing. In the case of a Reliant missionary son/daughter, the participant can live outside of the dorms on YMCA property with their parents. 

If the applicant is not a child of a Reliant missionary that is also a part of the LT program, if a director wants the minor to attend the program they will need to find separate housing for that participant. The director will need to discuss the living situation options for the minor with Reliant before moving forward with finding housing off YMCA property as this is a higher liability for all


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