How the Church is Working with Children, Young People & Families
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The document reports on children, youth, and families work in the diocese over the past few years. It notes the growth of programs like Open the Book in schools, youth cafes run by various organizations, and Prayer Spaces which have seen increasing participation. Recognized projects are highlighted as a best practice model that parishes can adapt locally while having a proven track record. The need to focus on investing in children, young people, and their parents to encourage exploration of faith is also emphasized.
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How the Church is Working with Children, Young People & Families
- 2. Diocesan Synod at The Horstead Centre Children, Youth & Families Work Report March 2011
- 3. 40 years of The Horstead Centre
- 4. Growth in parish work with youth & children
- 5. Growth in parish work with children and young people: Committed to Growth & Mission Fund
- 8. Open the Book at Fleggburgh CEVC Primary School
- 9. 130 Volunteers Storytellers in 65 Teams
- 13. 2012 – 26 MC 2013 – 35 MC 2014 – 40 MC
- 14. Youth Cafes
- 18. North Breckland Youth for Christ
- 20. ENYP
- 22. There is an urgent need to focus on children, young people and their parents and a challenge to identify how the church can best invest in people and programmes which will encourage young people to explore faith.
- 23. Prayer Spaces
- 28. 2012 – 151 borrowers 320 items 2013 – 158 borrowers 866 items 2014 – 226 borrowers
- 29. Local Parishes ‘committed to growth’
- 33. It is as if the space has tapped into a vein of spirituality in our pupils that none of us, themselves included, knew they had. Even pupils who exhibit challenging behaviour have been calm as soon as they walk into the space. Pupils who were already Christian seem relieved that their
- 38. Recognised projects mean you don’t have to reinvent the wheel but offer a best- practice models that can be adapted locally to suit community needs and
- 39. Recognised projects have a proven track record. We know they work. The church can have confidence in starting the project.
- 44. Unless you become like children…….
Editor's Notes
- It almost four years since Synod met at the Horstead Centre to receive a comprehensive up-date on children, youth and family work taking place in the Diocese of Norwich.
- One of the reasons Synod was meeting at Horstead was because we were about to celebrate 40 years the The Horstead Centre providing young people with memories that last a life time. A remarkable legacy and something the Diocese can be well proud of. Horstead has been a special place for generations of young people, there are clergy in the Diocese who not only remember Horstead as a special place in there childhood, but who own children are now experiencing Horstead and its becoming a special place for them. I am pleased Joise Barnett is here this morning and she will tell us all about the latest developments at with the centre that is going from strength to strength.
- At the Synod four years ago, as much as we were celebrating Horstead Centre, that was only part of the focus, the Horstead Centre was packed that Saturday, not as it normally is with school children, but every room was full of people, almost all who were volunteers, who were demonstrating to Synod different elements of youth and children's work that was going on on our local churches. were signs of a healthy growth in parish work with you and children.
- Synod heard how there had been a marked growth in work with children and young people due to the success of the parishes putting together Committed To Growth plans and Bishop of Norwich Mission Fund. As much as we celebrated the work of a specialist places for residential youth work like Horstead Centre, there was also a strong recognition that the Diocese not just ticking a box and saying ‘Horstead is where all our youth work happens’ but there was also an exciting amount of parish based initiatives for Synod to review many of them very new, but certainly beginning to flourishing. The 2010 national Church of England Statistics had shown that the Diocese of Norwich was the only Diocese in the country where there had been a rise in the number of children and young people attending services.
- But first I am pleased to intro Josie Barnett
- Lets reviewing some of those children, youth and family activities that were being demonstrated to Synod in 2011. The first was Open the Book, I am sure most of you are now very familiar with this fantastic resource, but for many at Synod is one of the first times they heard about it.
- Designed especially for Collective Worship within Primary Schools Assemblies (and in a Diocesan that runs over 110 Church of England Schools there is plenty of opportunity for Open the Book!) Open the Book, does not preach or teach, but simple tell the stories of the bible. Volunteer storytellers use drama, mime, props, costume and audience participation to present the stories in a way that is lively engaging, interactive and really fun! What's more its OFSTEAD approved! It’s a really important ministry when for many many children, Open the Book may be the only opportunity they have to hear the Bible stories.
- Back in 2011 we had run a handful of the one day training courses with our the marvelous volunteer trainer Irene Nicholson. Today I can tell you that we have over 130 volunteer storytellers in 65 teams, visiting 65 schools (church and non church) normally twice a month, though some teams go in every week (such is the demand from the school) Some of those teams are ecumenical teams with local churches connected to local schools working together. This picture is from a special celebration and training day we ran last year were we had almost half the storytellers come and as part of the day there was a special commissioning service led by +Jonathan. Open the Book is a tremendous success, nationally we are one of the most successful Diocese at embracing Open the Book. However there is still more schools to reach and it may been that you want to go back to your Dearnies and let us know where there are schools with no teams and maybe we can arrange a training day for you.
- In the dining room at Horstead that at Synod was a demonstration from Messy Church, we had Mulbarton, Badersfield and Acle Messy Churches there. In 2012 Mark Heyborune and the CYF team sent a survey to every Vicar asking for details of the youth and children work going on through their church, including if they had a Messy Church or another Fresh Expression
- We received 96 completed forms and of those 96, twenty six said they had a Messy Church. This data was shared with George Lings and was used as the basis for his national research which was published last year. George and his team phoned and interviewed each one of our Messy Churches. Many of you may have been at Synod when George Lings presented his findings
- – I still think it worth remembering the data on this slide – George found the average Fresh Expression has a an average attendance of 44 and 40% of those who attend – had NO previous church experience! The overwhelming majority of Fresh Expressions in our Diocese, are some form of ‘Messy Church style church service’ with an emphasis on all ages, they usually meet at a different time than the traditional Sunday early morning, activities that use the different learning styles (doing, watching, listening, talking) and include food. We have a proven resource here that can help our churches attract new, younger people.
- SO in our Diocese you can see the increase in Messy Churches that are formally registered with the Messy Church website. The actual number of ?Messy church style church services going on in our parishes will be higher. And I would especially like to plug the map of activities that can be found on the Diocesan website, please in your role as Rural Deans encourage parishes to post their church activities there, especially the activities that are aimed at families – it is important the people know what the local church offers for them. Twice a year Mark Heybourne and Andrea Woods the local co-ordinators for Messy Church host ‘Messy Meet-Ups’ to encourage Messy Church leaders or those thinking of starting Messy Church. If you wanted to host one in your Deanery then get in touch. Increasingly people are using Messy Church style services when they put on special services to mark the festivals such as Easter, Mothering Sunday, Pentecost, Harvest – this is a great place to start Messy Church if you are not doing it.
- Back in that Synod in 2011 we also talked about demise of the council funded youth service. We made the point then, that the local church, along with uniformed organisations, has always provided really vital local youth work but that now the need was only going to grow. We used as an example Banham Youth Café, which was meeting in one of our medieval churches St Mary in the Virgin, Banham
- I am pleased to tell you the youth café is still flourishing, in this picture you can see a football cage be set up one evening in September. Banham Youth Café is one of the biggest youth clubs in Norfolk. On its busiest evenings it can have up to 60 teenagers inside the church!
- As you can see the youth cafes flourishes inside the church within the pews! The Banham youth café is a success because it is very much a partnership. It’s a partnership between the local churches. It relies on a wide team of volunteers leaders, which includes many of the local church leaders. But there is also another very important factor…..
- The youth café also has the support of professional youth workers through South Norfolk Youth for Christ. The initial funding for this work came from the Bishops Mission Fund. Another significant development since 2011, is the number of churches who are working together to provide youth cafes for teenagers and are entering into partnerships with organisations that can provide the specialist youth work support. Since 2011 Integrate have continued to partner with local churches throughout South Norfolk and there are now youth cafes in Burston & Diss as well.
- Now we also have North Breckland Youth for Christ working all around the Dereham area with youth cafes in Barnham Broom, Mattishall (in the church rooms), Swanton Morley, North Elmham and Shipdham. Many of those places even if there was a fully funded council run youth service – it wouldn’t reach there! But the church can and is. What is especially interesting is the dramatic rise of the ‘after-school’ youth café lasting from say 4-5.30 - there are increasing examples of that including a brillinat example run by Jonny Bell in Cromer.
- We mustn’t forget Norwich Youth For Christ’s where Pete does such brilliant work in Porlingland and now Emmi is working with Revd Peter Leach in Brundall. Then there is also Unite Youth fort Christ in Yarmouth.
- Then there is ENYP who have moved way beyond there original East Norwich boundaries and now work in partnerships with lots of different churches all over Norwich and even now in Acle. Again close partnerships with local church volunteers and buildings supporting the work of trained and professional youth workers supplied by ENYP. The big advantage of this style of work is that it allows churches who cant afford to employ their own youth worker to buy as much of a workers as they can. It also allow the host agency whether it be Youth for Christ or ENYP to replicate a successful club, group or activity. So for example if a club worked in Heartsease how can we adapt it to work in Earlham etc.
- We mustn’t forget that we still have a good number churches who employ there own children's, youth and family worker. In the case of Simon Fenn we have a Deanery wide worker – which alongside contracting in sessional workers from ENYP or YFC should be seen as a template for future development. Simon works across the Deanery with local volunteers to provide youth and children's work and also makes a huge contribution into local schools. More research published last year from told us that - Churches who employ a youth worker are only half as likely to be declining as those who employ another type of paid worker.’
- This was the ‘From Anecdote to Evidence Report’ looking at church growth commissioned by the The Church of England ‘Spending Plans Task Force’. It also said this There is an urgent need to focus on children, young people and their parents and a challenge to identify how the church can best invest in people and programmes which will encourage young people actively to continue exploring faith. Investing in work with children, young people and their parents are all crucial factors in church growth. We have discussed what is happening in the Diocese with regard to ‘investing on people’– from the hundreds of volunteers involved in things like Open the book and Messy Church, to the specialist paid workers that are important to youth café type work with young people. But this quote also mentioned the urgent need for programmes which will encourage young people to explore faith.
- This brings us to one of the most successful initiatives currently within the Diocese, which keeps going from strength to strength. Prayer Spaces.
- The Diocese ran its first training day on prayer spaces in 2011.
- We have ran annual training days on running prayer spaces ever since each and each year through the prayers spaces resources we stock in our resources centers we supported around 25 prayer spaces each year schools (according to our data15 of those schools will be non-church schools). Again the actual number will be higher, these are just the ones that we explicitly know of and helped with.
- These are brand new pictures from a prayer space at Scole School – here you can see the ‘prayer domes’ which you can hire from the resource center to help create this wonderful environment.
- Here you can see the plasma balls the wooden crosses which are examples of how we have completely re-stocked the he resource center with practical items instead of books so that if you want to put on a prayer space there are lots of practical things you can borrow right away.
- Here are the figures for both the resource centres. The most popular items are Godly Play (133 loans) Followed by prayers spaces (130 loans)
- At the Synod four years ago, as much as we were celebrating Horstead Centre, that was only part of the focus, Horstead Centre was packed that Saturday, not as it normally is with school children, but every room was full of people, almost all who were volunteers, who were demonstrating to Synod the youth and children's work that was going on on our local churches.
- Prayer spaces has become one of the most popular and effective tools to help young people explore faith – and it has been a remarkable success how the Diocese has influenced youth workers and schools to start using the approach. Its now a core element of almost all our youth workers. Simon Fenn for example has adopted it as one of his main activities in North Norfolk
- All the Youth for Christ use it as the main way they engage with High Schools. Norwich Youth for Christ have even just appointed a dedicated prayer spaces worker.
- Schools recognise it as really valuable space that the church can provide in a way they can’t.
- Here is a great quote from the Head of RE at Pakefield School where Revd Mark Capron worked ecumenically with local churches to run a fantastic prayer space.
- Prayers spaces are also incredible versatile – here is the one we created in a big tent for NORJAM the Scout and Guide Jamboree – we had 1800 visitors to the space during the seven days of NORJAM.
- And here is a very different space we created for the Diocese of Norwich Norfolk Show tent.
- Open the Book, Messy Church, Youth Café and Prayer Spaces are all recognised project. One of the things the CYF team have have leant is the value adapting a recognised project or activity into local ministry. One of the key things the Diocese can do to support local church ministry is to make it as easy as possible to start a recognised project.
- We provide a leaflet guide to the projects that we think each local church should consider if it wants to meet that ‘urgent need’ to reach children, young people and their parents mentioned in the church growth report.
- As slide
- As slide but also : Proven track record also gives credibility when dealing with schools, other organisations, funders, the local authority and media offering additional reassurance that this is a project worth supporting.