Skip to main content

Kids Setup

This page is a one-time checklist. Do these steps once and your church is ready to run any kids program — Sunday club, VBS, youth night — for as long as you need it.

You'll need ~10 minutes and admin access to the Church Admin app.

Step 1 — Assign Youth or Ministry Leader roles​

Before a member can be picked as a program organizer, they need one of these church roles:

  • Senior leadership (admin / pastor / elder) — already eligible
  • Youth Leader
  • Ministry Leader

To assign:

  1. Open the Admin app → More → All Members.
  2. Find the member who will run the program.
  3. Tap their name → Edit roles.
  4. Add Youth Leader or Ministry Leader.
  5. Save.

If you skip this step, the organizer picker on the program form will be empty, and you'll see "No eligible leaders found in this church."

Step 2 — Open the Kids section​

In the Admin app:

More → Kids Programs

The first time you open it, the list is empty with a + New Program button.

Step 3 — Create your first program​

Tap + New Program and fill in the form. The form is grouped into sections:

SectionWhat to fill
Basic InformationProgram name + Kind (Music / Bible Study / Youth / VBS / Other)
Date & TimeWhen the program starts. If it runs indefinitely (e.g. weekly Sunday club), leave Indefinite toggled on.
ScheduleA free-text summary like "Tuesday 6:00 PM" — this is what parents see
OrganizersPick one or more leaders from the picker. Only members with eligible roles appear.
LogisticsMin/max age, room, capacity (0 = unlimited)
StatusActive / Inactive — keep Active for it to appear to parents

Required fields are just the name — everything else is optional but recommended.

Tap Create. The program is live immediately.

Step 4 — Walk a test parent through it​

Before you announce the program to the whole congregation, run a quick end-to-end test with one staff member who has a child:

  1. In the Member app — sign in as the parent.
  2. Open My Kids (from the More menu).
  3. Tap + Add Kid, fill in name, date of birth, allergies, and at least one emergency contact phone.
  4. Open the new program from the kids program list and tap Enroll.
  5. Open the child's profile and tap Show QR.
  6. Back in the Admin app — open the program → tap Scan.
  7. Point the camera at the parent's QR.
  8. You should see a success animation and the child's name appear on today's roster.

If anything fails, see Check-in and Pickup → Troubleshooting.

Step 5 — Brief your organizers​

Send your program organizers to two pages of this guide:

That's it — you're ready to launch.

  • Capacity — set a realistic limit on programs that fill up. Parents trying to enroll beyond the capacity get a clear "program is full" message.
  • Age range — set min/max age so parents enrolling a child whose age is outside the range get a warning, preventing accidental misenrollment.
  • Room — labelled on the parent's enrollment card and on the scanner header, so volunteers always know where to send a family.
  • Multiple organizers — assign 2–3 organizers per program. Any of them can run check-in; admins also always have access.

Common first-time questions​

Can a child be enrolled in more than one program? Yes. A child can be enrolled in any number of programs simultaneously.

Can two adults in a family enroll the same child? Yes — once the family is linked via the household-token flow (see Manage Programs → Households), both parents see the same child in their My Kids screen and either can pull up the QR.

What if a child shows up without a parent's phone? Use Manual check-in from the scanner screen — see Check-in and Pickup.

What if someone other than the enrolled parent is picking up the child? Use the Pickup without phone override — see Check-in and Pickup.