In 2008, The Children’s Society in partnership with the University of York developed its first ever survey into children and young people’s subjective well-being. The survey was composed of a series of questions about overall well-being and well-being in particular areas of children and young people’s lives.

The conceptual framework for the questionnaire was drawn from analysis of young people’s responses to the 2005 survey and centred on aspects of the self, relationships and the environments that children and young people inhabit. The questions were tested in focus groups, pilots and cognitive testing interviews with primary school children. The survey was then carried out with a representative sample of 7,000 10 to 15 year olds in England.

Key findings include:

• Most young people are satisfied with their lives. Only 7 to 10% could be said to be ‘unhappy’ or to have ‘low well-being
• As young people get older, they tend to become less happy with their lives.
• Some groups of young people have lower well-being than others, including girls, young people who define themselves as ‘disabled’ or ‘having difficulties with learning’, those who have experienced a recent change in the adults with whom they live, those living with a lone parent, and those living in a family with no adult in paid employment.
• That said, very little of the variation in well-being can be explained by the individual or family characteristics described above.
• Much stronger links are found between well-being and the following factors:
  - Family conflict – A simple measure of family harmony ‘my family gets along well together’ explains over 20% of the variation in overall well-being, while family structure explains less than 2%.
  - Bullying – Experience of bullying explains the same variation in overall well-being as all of the socio-demographic factors combined.
• Young people are least happy with the future, the amount of choice they have, their appearance, the local area and school.

The presentation of these findings at our launch event is still available.

Get involved

If you would like to know more about the 2008 survey, please contactresearch@childrenssociety.org.uk with your questions, or register for regular updates.

Well-being: Understanding children’s Well-being
A national survey of young people’s well-being

Click here to download the full report.

Click here to download the summary.

At Bristol Centre for Youth Ministry (BCYM) we are seeking to publicise training opportunities for those who currently work or are preparing to work with children and families. The Centre for Youth Ministry (CYM) offers a number of training opportunities including the ‘BA Honours Degree in Children and Family Work and Practical Theology’, validated by Staffordshire University.

Please find attached leaflet giving further information of this training opportunity for those who want to work more effectively with families, children, young people and schools.  We would be grateful if you would kindly forward the information to those in your organisation who may be interested and to other networks, as appropriate.   Meanwhile, if you would like to have further questions relating to the course, please feel free to contact my colleague, Siân Hancock at s.hancock@bristol-baptist.ac.uk or phone: 0117 9469210 during office hours.  Alternatively, further information on all CYM courses can be found at www.centreforyouthministry.ac.uk

Click here to download the leaflet.

We look forward to hearing from you.

With best wishes

Elaine Shillaber

Course Administrator   0117 9469209 (Mon/Wed/Thurs)   cym@bristol-baptist.ac.uk

East Devon: www.eastdevonplaynetwork.proboards.com

Exeter: www.exeterplaynetwork.proboards.com

Both networks have been updated with articles on

• Training, Safeguarding, Leadership and Management and Everyone can play and much more
• Funding, Jack Riley Trust and Waitrose – now covering two pages!!
• Playwork Principles, diaries and inclusion
• Useful links such as free sports equipment, just by clicking a website!!

Saturday 5th February 2011

10am-12 noon (coffee from 9.30 onwards)

at Christ Church, Bear Street, Barnstaple

1. Purpose: Why was it written? Does it match our needs?
2. Theology: How is God depicted? Who is Jesus? The Holy Spirit? The People of God? Is it in keeping with my church’s / denomination’s theology? How is creation, sin, judgement and redemption explored?
3. Type: Is it lectionary-based, Montessori-approach, Rotational/Learning Center, Thematic? What type will support our goals?
4. Lessons: Is there supportive material for teachers? Engaging and a variety of activities for learners? Special supplies or typical on-hand materials needed?
5. Bible: How is the Bible used? What version? Are Old Testament stories told? New Testament? Gospels?
6. Worship: How is prayer included? Is it important to have lessons on the sacramental traditions? Creedal statements? How is Baptism and Communion explained?
7. Publisher: Is it affiliated with any particular denomination that may impact the lessons and theology?
8. Cost: Does it fit in my budget? Is it reusable? Dated? Extra pieces that need to be purchased for the program to work?

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Sunday Morning Children’s Ministry Golden Rules (click to see full page at Oxford Diocese)

Know your children and what the aims are of your church’s ministry with children.

Know your volunteers and what skills, committment, vision and expertise they bring.

Find the resources that best helps your church achieve it’s aims in children’s ministry.

Don’t get stuck in rut only ever using one resource. Rotate, change, try out new things – this will keep things fresh and challenging for children and leaders.

If a resource doesn’t work for your situation don’t tell everyone it’s totally useless! Different things work in different situations at different times with different leaders and children.

Share. Most places keep a copy of material they’ve used so it ought to be very possible to swap with another church to try something new without spending loads of money.

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ROOTS

Every two months, ROOTS publishes two lectionary based magazines: Children & Young People and Adult & All Age.  Lots of practical tips along with weekly resources with ideas for worshipping and learning together! View a sample .

Pub. Churches Ltd       £5.70 (Adult & All Ages) £7.80 (Children & Young People)

LightLive provides exciting Bible-based resources for children’s, youth and all-age ministry, and puts a wealth of activities and ideas for your work with children and young people at your fingertips.  It’s all on line and free – though churches using it on a regular basis are asked to make a donation to the running costs of the website.

Bible-based themes all available online at the Lightlive site or still available in book form.

“Light is our range of curriculum materials for children’s groups which can be used on Sundays in church or in midweek clubs”.(quoted from the Scripture Union Website) The Light range includes:

• Bubbles for under 5s
• Splash! for 5-8 year olds
• Xstream for 8-10 year olds
• theGRID for the 11-14 age group
• SUbstance (coming in 2008) for older teenagers
• resources for all-age worship including Light for the Lectionary and the All Age Service Annual plus All Age Service Starters
• music for children.
• Web downloads available

Themes and aims are very clear, layout, structure of sessions and activities are easy to use and encourage the children to reflect and respond.

Light is easy for volunteers to pick up and run with, which can sometimes encourage lack of preparation, which is a shame because the material is good. Depending on who you talk to, ‘Bubbles’ is best and ‘the GRID’ is the weakest of the age banded material.

Tiddlywinks for Under 5s

LectionaryLive is a new strand on LightLivefor people using the Common Worship lectionary.

Each week, there will be an all-age service + helpful extras for when everyone is meeting together; then relevant Light activities for 5s and under, 5 to 8s, 8 to 11s and 11 to 14s will be available whenever possible. The lectionary Bible passages do not coincide with the Lightsyllabus exactly but there are many times when there is an exact match or a close overlap.LectionaryLive will make those sessions available to users and take the hard work out of searching and planning.

LectionaryLive is live now, ready for the start of the church year (Year A, in the Common Worshiplectionary) on Advent Sunday, 28 November 2010.

Mosaic gives you the tools you need to deliver fun, Bible-based sessions with your mixed age groups.

Mosaic responds specifically to the needs that many churches express where a small number of children meet together across a broad age range.

Go Teach has been producing Bible teaching material in the United Kingdom since 1946. Our purpose is to glorify God by advancing the Christian faith through the production of Bible-teaching material for use with children and young people. Please look around our web site to find out more about our teaching programme and publications.

Click! – The Good Book Company

CLICK is based on the kids@church programme from CEP Australia and has been revised expanded and re-designed for use in UK churches. It is an excellent Bible-based teaching resource for children in three age groups: 3-5’s, 5-7’s and 8-11’s.

Information

‘Click’ is Bible-themed material each book containing 10 sessions. Each leaders book costs £13.00 plus a child’s take-home component costing £1.25 per child. This is a new resource that will eventually contain 12 books for each age-group, making a 4 year syllabus. This material is very strong on Bible teaching and the theme and aims of each session are very clear.

Click is set out for 3-5′s, 5-7′s and 8-11′s.

There are notes for leaders, prayer, start-up activity, Bible focus, Digging Deeper for older children, bringing it together and an ideas menu. There are a variety activities on offer but perhaps not as ‘visual’ as some resources.

Sample material available to buy here from £2.50 or borrow a copy from the CCYP office.

KidZone: 164 sessions providing a four-year teaching cycle for children aged 5-9. If you have a wide age range in your group, this material can be used with children from 5-11

Y-Zone: 164 sessions providing a four-year programme teaching cycle for children aged 9-13.

MiniZone: 92 sessions providing a two-year teaching cycle for children aged 3-5.

TotZone: 92 sessions providing a two-year teaching programme toddlers and preschoolers.

Living Stones – Susan Sayers

Information

Living Stones material follows themes of readings from the Revised Common Lectionary and books are avialable covering years A, B, C. One book for each age group costing £15.99 covers one year.

Age groups are;

‘Pebbles’ = Pre-school, Rocks = 6-10′s and Boulders = 11-14′s.

Session follow a ‘thought for the day’, readings, starter and teaching, praying and activities.

Compared to other resources this one needs more preparation, it would be very difficult to pick it up and run with it, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The ideas are good but more in ‘teaching’ style than an ‘exploring together’ model.

A strength of Living Stones is the way the material links with worship in the whole church family. All-Age worship and intercession resources are also available.

Couldn’t find any samples anywhere but you can purchase this material from all good Christian bookshops or online Christian store Eden. or borrow it from the CCYP office.

Friends and Heroes

Information

Brand new resources based on the popular series first shown on BBC television in 2007.

More information here

Promiseland – Willow Creek

Information

Promiseland aims to give children a sequential view of the bible so they can understand how the people and events all fit together to tell God’s story and to show how much God wants each one of us to become part of His story.

Edda Lindner, Director of Children’s Ministries at St James, Gerrards Cross is a champion of Promiseland.

Impact, Fusion, Detonate – Mark Griffiths

A years worth of teaching material suitable for use with 5-12′s on sundays or mid-week by Mark Griffiths.

Searchlights – David Adam

Information

‘Searchlights’ material is based on Revised Common Lectionary themes and books are available for years A, B and C. Each book costs £14.99 and lasts one year. Song CD’s are also available. Aims are not set out and this is not as comprehensive as other resources, that is, it may need more preparation to pad out ideas. Photocopiable resources included.

Material covers;

Candles = 3-5′s; Lamps = 6-10′s; Torches = 11+

Each session offers readings, teaching, activity, prayer, song. One criticism suggested that it does not offer much ‘application’ or opportunities for reflection and response, however, as a leader you could work these in.

Mixing it up with…

Information

Each book by Owen Smith contains 12 sessions on faith and life issues specifically aimed at 9-13 year olds. They are contemporary and relevant to the culture tweenagers are imersed in.

There are examples of most of these to borrow from the CCYP office.  Contact Katherine

Also a lectionary based resource being set up by Bath and Wells Diocese, called SundayMax, Click here to have a look.

• More people do unpaid work for church organisations than any other organisation.  Eight per cent of adults undertake voluntary work for church organisations while sixteen per cent of adults belong to religious or church organisations.
• A quarter of regular churchgoers (among both Anglicans and other Christians separately) are involved in voluntary community service outside the church. Churchgoers overall contribute 23.2 million hours voluntary service each month in their local communities outside the church.
• The Church of England provides activities outside church worship in the local community for 407,000 children and young people (aged under 16 years) and 32,900 young people (aged 16 to 25 years). More than 116,000 volunteers and an additional 4900 employed adults run children/young people activity groups sponsored by the Church of England outside church worship.

Church attendance and visits

• 1.7 million people take part in a Church of England service each month, a level that has been maintained since the turn of the millennium. Approximately one million participate each Sunday.
• Approaching 3 million people participate in a Church of England service on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve. Thirty-five per cent of the population attend a Christmas service of some sort, rising to 42 per cent in London, nationally, and 22 per cent among those of non-Christian faiths.
• The Church of England has the largest following of any denomination or faith in Britain today. More than 4 in 10 in England regard themselves as belongingto the Church of England, while 6 in 10 consider themselves Christian.
• People support their local churches in many different ways at different points in their lives. Each year 3 in 10 attend regular Sunday worship and more than 4 in 10 attend a wedding in their local church, while still more attend a funeral there
• In 2009, 43 per cent of adults attended a church or place of worship for a memorial service for someone who has died and 17 per cent were seeking a quiet space.  Both these proportions are increases on 22 per cent and 12 per cent respectively in 2001.
• 85 per cent of the population visit a church or place of worship in the course of a year, for reasons ranging from participating in worship to attending social events or simply wanting a quiet space.
• Every year, around 12 million people visit Church of England cathedrals, including 300,000 pupils on school visits. Three of England’s top five historic ‘visitor attractions’ are York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

Education

• Seven in ten (72%) of the population agree that Church of England schools help young people to grow into responsible members of society and 8 in 10(80%) agree that they promote good behaviour and positive attitudes.
• Latest available statistics indicate one in four primary schools and one in 16secondary schools in England are Church of England schools. Approaching one million pupils are educated in more than 4,700 Church of England schools.

To see the full list, click here

http://www.assemblies.org.uk

http://www.prayingeachday.org/

http://www.schoolassemblies.btinternet.co.uk/search.htm

http://www.brf.org.uk

http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/49490.id

The programme can take several forms:

1. An 8 week unit culminating in an awards ceremony and guest speaker.

2. Part of a summer camp programme

3. The basis of a church holiday club programme

4. Part of a KS2 PE programme

5. Part of an RE programme.

Click here to find out cost and details.