How many adults does each room need?

How to use it

• Pick your policy's ratio. 1:4 means one adult for every four children. Many child protection policies set a different ratio for each age group, with fewer children per adult for babies and toddlers, so use a different column for each room.
• Plan for the busiest Sunday, not the average one. Rooms fill up on holidays, and a room that's one child over needs another adult.
• Two adults, always. Every number here is at least two, so no adult is ever alone with children. Teen helpers don't count toward it.

The table

Each row is the number of children in the room; each column is one adult for that many children.

Worked out as the number of children divided by the ratio, rounded up, and never fewer than two. This is a planning aid, not advice: your church's own policy, your insurer and any state licensing rules that apply to your programs decide the ratios. Last reviewed October 2026.

Your volunteers on a Sunday

Add up the adults for every room and every service: that's how many adults you need each Sunday. How many volunteers do we need? turns that into the people your ministry needs.

Let Arkrooms keep count

Arkrooms checks these numbers on every schedule it builds. It reads each room's children from Planning Center Check-Ins, staffs for the children you expect, and tells your leaders during a service when a room has more children than its adults cover.

Try the demo See the features