Why We Built Safe Pathways
We are Stephanie and Steve Joneslee, a pastor and an entrepreneur who have spent years on the front lines of children's ministry and organizational safeguarding.
We kept seeing the same problem. Churches knew what safeguarding required: the training, the policies, the police checks. But knowledge was not the gap. Implementation was. Volunteers did not want to keep serving because they did not want to sit through hours of training yet again. References did not get completed because no one had time to chase them. Volunteers started serving before their checks came back because the church needed the help. Policies sat in a filing cabinet because no one knew how to make them real.
Steve had seen the same gap at a different scale. He helped the United Nations develop its system-wide Zero Tolerance of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) policy suite and e-learning course, used across more than a hundred organizations. He also sat on both sides of what happens when an allegation is made. He watched justice done for survivors because the records existed. He watched a falsely accused staff cleared because the records existed. From both sides, the lesson was the same. Memory is not enough. People forget, accounts conflict, and they change with time. What protects everyone is the record. What you can actually show happened, or show did not happen.
Safeguarding really comes in three parts: the plan, the follow-through, and the proof. Knowing what to do, doing it week after week, and being able to show you did. That last part is the one most safeguarding misses. Doing the right thing is necessary, but it is not the same as being able to prove you did it, on the day someone finally asks. And for a church, that day can come long after the people involved have moved on, because most survivors of childhood abuse do not come forward until 52 years old, and in Canada there is no statute of limitations on child abuse.
So that is what Safe Pathways is. Not another manual. Not another training program. A platform that closes the gap between what is written in your policy and what actually happens during ministry, and then keeps the proof, for as long as it might be needed, in a record that survives staff changes and cannot be quietly lost. Built to protect your church, and to side with the truth.
Meet our team.
Husband & wife co-founders.
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Pastor Stephanie (Registered Early Childhood Educator) translates the art and science of early childhood development into clear, role-specific training for church volunteers. With an Early Childhood Education diploma, an honours bachelor’s degree in ECE, and a Master’s in Early Childhood Studies where she explored how children construct identity and belonging, she channels rigorous research into the micro-learning pathways and policy templates.
Over more than a decade on the front lines of pastoral care she has managed six-figure children’s ministry budgets, led volunteer teams, taught in licensed daycare classrooms, provided one-on-one family support as a nanny and parent-relief worker, and partnered with public schools to embed age-appropriate safeguards. Stephanie has also developed concise courses that equip pastors to weave truth and reconciliation principles and robust duty-of-care standards into everyday ministry practice.
Certified in Mental Health First Aid, First Aid and CPR, the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths tool, and High Five quality assurance, she ensures every Safe Pathway lesson is trauma-informed, developmentally appropriate, and ready for Sunday morning reality.
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Steve transforms world-class safeguarding standards into streamlined, evidence-backed processes that churches can implement with confidence. He helped the United Nations develop its system-wide Zero Tolerance of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) policy suite and e-learning course, experience that now informs the evidentiary standards Safe Pathways builds into every volunteer pathway.
Founder of a Canadian charity Finance Engage Sustain (FES), Steve created and delivered engaging education - both in-person and online - to more than 500 high schools, colleges, and universities in all 13 Canadian provinces and territories, reaching over 100,000 trainees. The mastery-based micro-learning model he pioneered there sits at the core of Safe Pathways digital curriculum.
Steve has also served as committee member, board director, and elder in congregations ranging from church plants to multi-sites, giving him an insider’s grasp of pastoral realities and governance.
A Certified Fund Raising Executive, University of Toronto science graduate, and owner of a strategy consultancy, Steve has served clients like the United Nations, governments, foundations, and nonprofits.