New family registration form

Posted on 12. Oct, 2009 by in Design, Fresh Ideas

Back in February I wrote about family registration cards. Our card was old, out-dated and way to vague. We had the card redesigned and have been using it for several months now. Actually, the new card has even undergone a few revisions. With forms like these, I tend to print them in house and use them until we discover all the mistakes or things that need to be adjusted. You won’t really know until you use them. Once we’re happy, we have them professionally printed.

So, here’s the card we ended up with.

KidsQuest

What do you think? Any changes that you would suggest?

Meet Kenny

Kenny Conley has written 1607 posts on CMO.

Kenny Conley is the primary author of Childrens Ministry Online and the NextGen Pastor at Gateway Church in Austin, TX. In addition to creating the Illuminate Conference, a high quality kidmin conference designed specifically for volunteers, Kenny is a published author and speaker. For more biographical info, click here.

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  • http://gospelplayboy.blogspot.com David Scott

    Yeah – I have four kids ;)

    Wondering – at what point does a new family fill this out? Check-in to one of your environments?

  • http://christiaanity.com Christiaan

    I love the look of it. It’s nicely laid out and asks the right amount of questions. Good job!

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    Yeah, this form is filled out the first time a child is checked into any of our rooms. Very rarely do I have a parent not complete the form completely.

    Yeah, my preference would be to squeeze 4 kids on one from, but I’m determined to keep the registration for this size… and one sided. In the past 5 months, I’ve probably less than 5 families who needed a second card for their 4th (or 5th) child.

  • http://www.lostinlaundry.com Starr

    I like who you included a place to list other people allowed to pick up their kid. That always seems to be an issue….do you think your leaders actually pull out the cards to see if the person doing pick up is listed??

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    Starr, I included it becasue it is a Fellowship One feature. In the household view of the family, there is a place for authorizations. I can add as many people as I want and it’s just a text field, so it doesn’t have to be someone who has a record in the database.

    So, if a parent or anyone claiming to be responsible for the child loses his or her parent receipt, we go to the household view of Fellowship One and see who has authorization to pick up the kids in that house. If the person claiming to have authorization is in F1, we just need to see an ID. If not, we need to call or contact one of the people who does have authorization.

    We just included this on our card, but for years we haven’t collected this kind of data. We’re thinking about doing some kind of data campaign in the fall, possibly to update people’s information but most importantly, to get these authorizations together.

  • http://www.b-a-light.com Eric Griffin

    What happens if they fill out one at the nursery then go to drop off another child at kids church how is that handled? are there any missed sign-in do to different areas? Love the look.

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    We have a centralized check-in. It’s in the lobby to our kids building. You have to check in there to get a name tag and you can’t drop a child of in a room without a name tag. You can’t miss it and no one ever does.

  • http://samluce.com Sam

    I like that you don’t give an option to weather or not you want your kids photographed. Much eaiser, I’ll steal that one for next time we redo ours.

    The 2nd guardian part seems a bit redundant and clutters the overall look. Is that necessary?

  • http://kidsministryrevolution.com Sarah Thompson

    Looks really good.
    I like how the steps make it really clear and a lot less intimidating.
    We have a seperate form for visiors, then when kids have been coming for a while we get them to fill in a more detailed one. We also have a seperate health profile so once they’ve filled it in they’re good to go for any camps and other events that we do during the year. Is a lot of paper work though…

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    Sam,

    Yeah, sometimes it’s better not to ask for permission, but make it assumed unless otherwise told.

    Is the 2nd guardian necessary? I don’t even get why you’re asking that? Is the mom necessary, or just the dad? Or is the mom more important than the dad? It’s our aim to get a complete data profile for the family. Since most families have two adults, we have a place for both of them where we can get their DOB, cell, email and their relationship to the child. Yeah, it’s incredibly necessary for me. The more info I have on a family, the better. :)

    Sarah,

    You’re not alone in your deal. I know a lot of churches who are really light on the information gathering for visitors and then get more when they become regular. Too much work for me, I’d rather get it all in one shot, even if that means we have a lot of data on people who only attended once. It’s not the data entry that seems like a lot of work, but tracking the people and getting the additional information.

  • Jenny

    Kenny,
    Love the form! How do you handle a visitor who comes with another family? Like a kid who brings his buddy who spent the night? Do they fill out this whole thing?

  • http://childrensministryonline.com Kenny

    Nope, in Fellowship One you can add visitors to a family. The only info we really get is the child’s name and birth date. Once that child comes with their own family, the parents will fill out this from and be added. Then this child will be moved over to his/her own family.

  • http://www.dustinaagaard.com Dustin Aagaard

    Great job, thanks for great work and even bigger props for sharing your hard work for the Kingdom. Keep rockin it! Dustin