Invited to Belong inclusion reflection tool for youth/kids leaders review by Becky Lawrence

Invited to Belong (a partnership resource from Youthscape and Urban Saints) is a six-part journey resource for youth and kids leaders to help consider how to invite young people with additional needs to find a place of belonging within your community, your youth group, your church etc.  As someone myself who has found just the thought of working with special and additional needs young people a daunting challenge, this is a great resource to give us all more confidence to properly include those with special or additional needs in our ministries with children and youth.

I’ve been involved in youth ministry for over 15 years and on multiple occasions we had young people with additional needs just turn up to our activities, where we obviously welcomed them and tried our best to include them.  But I have to admit feeling out of my depth on occasion and remember wishing I was more equipped to make sure I was doing the right thing and offering the best support to those young people.  This resource is designed to help you to feel more equipped to proactively include, invite and welcome young people with additional needs to your youth/kids work.  I wish I had this resource many years ago – it is a breath of fresh air and a much needed resource for us all to proactively think through how we engage, love and give a warm welcome to young people with additional needs.

Inside the resource are six envelopes, designed to be opened in order, each with a different reflective task, activity, or challenge inside. Once you’ve completed one, only then should you move on to the next.  The envelopes and reflections include videos, questions to ponder, a game, and more.  It’s designed to be used as a resource  explored together as a team, but if you don’t have a team at the moment or are the only paid worker, you could go through this yourself on your own to inform your youth & kids work practice.

Urban Saints suggests, “You could set aside a Saturday, get the team together, and lock yourselves away together until you’ve opened every one!  If that’s not your style, you could all arrive an hour early to youth group for six weeks and open one at a time… the choice of how you take this journey is up to you. But no matter how you chose to do it, there are some things you can all expect:

• You can expect to be inspired, by real stories.
• To be challenged by the stories we read in the Bible of the encounters Jesus had with people who experienced difficulties, who needed something from him, and what Jesus taught us about inclusion and belonging through their interaction.
• To be informed and equipped, with practical knowledge and information that can help you to make real changes.
• You can expect to dream bigger. For God’s to expand your vision, and move you.

And finally, expect, not just your youth work, but also for you, to be changed. To become people who have the heart, the knowledge, and the will, to see every missing young person invited to find a genuine sense of belonging within God’s Church.”

 

Invited to Belong is £17 and can be purchased from:

Urban Saints online shop https://www.energize.uk.net/articles/additional_needs/resources/invited_belong

or Youthscape online shop https://www.youthscape.co.uk/store/product/invited-to-belong

 

Note: this resource was kindly given to me as a free gift for all the delegates at Youthscape’s National Youth Ministry Weekend 2021.  For more quality free resources like this one and quality teaching/seminars, make sure to book yourself a place at NYMW 2022 in Birmingham 18-20 November.