A year in the life of St. Mary Magdalen, Sheet

Youth Work Overview:
Angela Gilmour (Youth & Children’s Coordinator)

The Youth and Children’s Coordinator is a very new role for St Mary’s through which I aim to oversee and coordinate work with the under 18’s both within our church and hopefully in the wider PACT community.

Children and their ministry are highly valued at St Mary’s. We are very fortunate in already having two family services as well as a wealth of committed adults providing excellent groups for our young people. We cater for the whole age range with Creche(0-3 years) through to SMUTs(3-10 years), RockSolid,(11+) Youth Group(13+) and more recently the SMART Group to provide social opportunities for the rising teens. Additionally many of our teenagers participate in PACT organised events outside of St Mary’s including Youth Alpha and Crusaders.

Through this role I hope that greater inter-group support and co-ordination will be possible. My role will also enable information to be passed between group leaders and the Vicar and leaders will be kept informed of relevant issues from the diocese. Pastoral support will also be provided, training opportunities identified and communicated to leaders and ongoing collaboration with the Child Protection Officer will ensure good practices continue to be employed.

To date I have managed to meet with all group leaders individually to gain an overview of what they perceive to be the strengths and weaknesses of their groups. This will allow for cross group meetings in future to share ideas and concerns. I am willing to act as a sounding board for all new ideas or problems so please keep me informed of any thoughts you have related to children’s ministry. The need for future strategic planning may arise as a result of this sharing of ideas?

Child Protection:
Anne Davidson (Child Protection Representative)

At the time of writing, we are about to have a Child Protection Awareness Training Day in Petersfield for all the PACT churches on 19 March which I'm hoping some of our children's and youth group leaders and helpers will attend. All adults involved in children's work or who have under 18s in the same organisation are now legally required to be Police checked by completing a Criminal Records Bureau Disclosure form. If you are one of these and have not completed a form, please contact me.

The Diocese Child Protection Policy is held in the Parish office and is available for all to read.