YOUTH

Child safety

Your child’s safety is of the upmost importance for the team and as a church as a whole. That’s why every leader has to fill the criteria below.

• A DBS
• Safeguarding training
• E-safety training
• Agreement to the safeguarding policy

We have leaders at all of our Youth events. If we ever do anything outside of the normal remit on Sunday mornings or Friday evenings, then we will contact you before hand and ask for your consent. If you ever have any concerns about your child’s safety, please contact us.

Does Youth cost money?

The normal Youth events are free of charge. Some of the extra events we do will cost money to cover any additional expenses.

How Youth works best

The youth ministry will work best relationships between the young person, the parent / guardian and the Youth Team work in unison with open and regular communication.

We encourage you to be involved with your child’s development in Youth. Each year group has year leaders, we encourage you to get to know them. We believe that Youth is a supplement to the young person’s spiritual development. We believe that you are the most influential people in their development, therefore we encourage strong relationships in their home life as much as possible.

Transition

Between the ages of 12-18 young people are on a journey of transition. It’s an incredibly exciting time, however as a parent and a young person, it can be a challenging time. Everything in their world is changing; from their school life, to their physical bodies and their friendship groups, it’s all undergoing big change. They’re making the transition from being dependent children to interdependent adults. Teenage anxiety levels are typically higher than an adults or a young child. Recognising this, there are a couple of things that we think might help you and your teenager on this journey.

Consistency

All young people need consistency. It helps them build relationships and an identity. During the teenage years lots of things will start competing for their time. There may also be a time where they say they don’t want to go to church anymore. However, if their attendance is consistent, especially from year 7, it will help them form the relationships they need to feel like they belong to the youth group. We want to encourage you to bring your child to as many Youth events as possible. We’ve seen that with consistent attendance young people start to settle down and build strong long lasting relationships. It may seem like an uphill struggle, but persistent encouragement and support to attend church is invaluable. In time they are more than likely to meet friends and have fun, however if their attendance is inconsistent those relationships won’t be built.

Relationships

All it takes is one good relationship and a young person will feel much more relaxed and at home. At Youth we have seen relationships develop in a certain order.

• Relationship with a peer
• Relationship with a YOUTH leader
• Relationship with God

No one likes going to an event and feeling alone. That’s why one of the best things you can do as a parent is to encourage the relationships your son / daughter is forming with other young people in church. It may be as simple as providing a lift for a group of friends on a Friday night. You could invite some young people back to your house. It all helps them feel more relaxed and enables them to engage with what we’re doing in church. Secondly, we often tell our leaders that they “won’t care how much you know, unless they know how much you care.” That’s why we proactively try and build relationships with your teenager. You can be involved in the development of that relationship by getting to know who your child’s year leader is, buying them a coffee or speaking to them in church. It all helps.

Lastly we would say that it’s hard to be open and vulnerable in place where you don’t know or trust anyone, that’s why relationships are key. We’ve seen that when a young person has a friend to attend YOUTH with and they trust their leaders, they are much more relaxed and open to develop a relationship with God.