Non-Biological Parents in Send a Message App

We noticed that when you select "Parents of Young Men" and "Parent of Young Women" you only get the biological parents of the child, rather than the adults in the household, which means if there's a non-biological parent for one of the children, they don't automatically get the messages that are sent out. Is it possible to modify the behavior or have a setting added that would allow us to include step-parents, grandparents raising the children, or allow for some of the other non-nuclear family scenarios that we encounter?

In the Leader and Clerk Resources forum there is a topic titled "Send a Message" Function on LCR that briefly addresses this issue. Mentioned in this post the poster states " It appears it only goes to those who are both listed as the child's parents and are in the household." Adding to that I would clarify the definition of parent to include adoptive parents. This means parents who have the child listed on their membership record. This excludes guardians/parents/step-parents/grand parents/other relatives that do not have the child listed in their membership record.

alex.diestler wrote: Is it possible to modify the behavior or have a setting added that would allow us to include step-parents, grandparents raising the children, or allow for some of the other non-nuclear family scenarios that we encounter?

The best method to get this suggestion to those who make the decisions about such features is to send feedback using the feedback link found at the bottom of the Send a Message application. There is little chance those who make the decisions will see this thread or even visit the Tech Forum.

I know from past conversations, the decision about who to include is not taken lightly. Somewhere between the policy and legal people, it was decided that simply being the "adult" of the household wasn't enough to consider them to be the child's guardian.

In your request, you might ask for consideration to include the spouse of the biological parent when all three are in the same household. (I hope the developers don't put coal in my stocking for that suggestion...)

Please note that the child's records should reflect the legal parents, not necessarily the biological parents. If the non-biological parent has adopted the child, then it would be appropriate to record them as the child's parent - which would solve your issue. (See General Handbook 33.6.12)

russellhltn wrote:In your request, you might ask for consideration to include the spouse of the biological parent when all three are in the same household. (I hope the developers don't put coal in my stocking for that suggestion...)

You won't get coal in your stocking, but I can confirm that the rule that has been established is that a member must be (1) the child's parent and (2) the child and parent must be in the same household. Other adults in the household (step-parents, adult siblings, other random adults) should not be treated as a parent by applications. There was specific discussion about how to treat step-parents (spouse of a biological parent when all three are in the same household) and the above rule reflects the result of that discussion.

Seems to me that a simple side-step would address both the verifiable need for a more inclusive automatic distribution list for those responsible for Primary children, young men, or young women (the three current automatic "parents of..." distributions). If you agree that this would be a useful update (see my below recommendation), please submit your own feedback to the LCR team asking for the exact same thing - so they can see the true demand signal for more useful distribution lists.

-------------------- Recommendation Follows --------------------

I recommend updating the Send a Message application's default list for sending a message to "Parent s of..."

My recommended update is two-fold.

Firstly, change the title of those default lists from "Parents of..." to "Parents, Guardians, and Caregivers of..." This name change better reflects the actual usage of such distribution lists.

Nearly every time a church leader wants to send a message to the "Parents of Primary Children" (for example), that church leader ACTUALLY wants to send a message to those that are caring for those children (i.e., the court appointed guardians, caretakers, and parents). There is little utility in having an automatic distribution that is restricted to just the Biological Parent (or in the case of an exception the non-biological parent that has adopted).

Secondly, after changing the name to better reflect higher utility distribution list, then change the system to actually create said lists by automatically including all adults in the same household in the distribution. This ensures the utility of the Send a Message application matches leadership needs AND preserves the reasonable church definition of a parent.

Both can coexist - just change the name of the distribution list and then match the new distribution list names with the included emails.

-------------------- End of Recommendation --------------------

jakobah wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2024 2:34 pm I recommend updating the Send a Message application's default list for sending a message to "Parent s of..."

When considering changes, one must consider all the possible situations that might be going on as well as legal liabilities.

What kinds of situations?

If you go with the parent's on the child's record and ignore the household, it's possible that the child is in foster care. Sending an email to the legal but separated parents could reveal the location of the child. Not good.

Sending it to the head of household (and spouse) and ignoring the parental connection can also have issues. There's really no assurance that the head of house is the legal guardian. You could have a situation of three generations living in one house hold: child, parent, and the parent's parent. Sending to the grandparent is not the answer.

As scgallafent stated, this has been discussed and the current setup is the only one with assurances to be correct. But it does mean some emails will not be going out.