Introduction

This resource for discussion, and hearing the voices of young people, has been designed with the young people who are Ethos Prefects at Manor Academy in York Diocese. They have set our agenda, chosen the topic and worked on the activities with their Chaplain Miriam Kearney and Angela Brymer, the Diocesan Children and Youth Adviser. With special thanks to the students who have developed this resource and will collate the information returned.

This is the second Listening Process we have undertaken in York Diocese. We have taken our inspiration from Young People in Leicester Diocese and also the Growing Faith Foundation who have a question of the term for young people to take part in.

It is important that, having heard the voices of young people, we make a response. We are committed to collating young people’s responses and sharing that back to the groups that have taken part so that they can hear from other young people like them. We intend to do this in the autumn term.

The Ethos Prefects have devised a separate activity 1 for children aged 4-6 or 7. We would recommend that activities 1, 3 and 5 can be done by these younger children. And activities 1-5 can be done by children and young people aged 7 and older.  Please choose what feels right for your participants. We have tried to make them as accessible as possible for a variety of age groups.

We are also aware that some children and young people may be struggling with their wellbeing at this time and so this may not be the activity for your group on this occasion. The students have thought hard about how to enable children and young people to think about their wellbeing safely but we would advise adult facilitators to read through the whole pack and consider the children and young people you know and whether it is appropriate for them. It is also wise to consider what pastoral support you have available for children and young people in advance of doing the activities. What will you do should a situation arise whilst the children and young people you know are doing these activities? You might wish to have extra team members available, you may consider sending a letter home in advance to advise families, parents and carers and give them choice as to whether to take part.

As part of our Diocesan response, Barry Hill, Bishop of Whitby, who has a responsibility for oversight of Growing Younger, in the Diocese of York, will make a recorded response to go with the report and this can be shared with your participants. The hope is that other senior staff and colleagues will make responses too. Perhaps you would like to share the final report with other leaders in your local community where it is appropriate.

Thank you for taking part- we look forward to hearing from you.

Monitoring

Number of participants
Female
Male
Age range
Number of UK Minority Ethnic Global majority Heritage
Number of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
Are you a primary school?
Are you a secondary school?
Are you a church group?
The name of your school or church so that we can include you in our report.

Activity 1 age 4-7 years

In a usual day how often do you feel happy, sad, angry, calm? Matching emojis and towers of bricks. The taller bricks are feelings you have the most. The shorter tower of bricks are the feelings you don’t have very much or often.

Activity 1 age 7 and above

In a usual day how often do you feel these emotions?

Happy | Sad | Anxious (or worried) | Angry | Embarrassed | Optimistic (or looking forward to something) | Excited | Calm

Think about the emotion you feel the most and colour in the column as high as you want. Think about the other emotions and colour in the columns to the right height for you.

Activity 2

Choose your top 2 emotions from question 1 -the ones that you scored highest- that you feel the most often. Write them here

__________________________________________________  

_________________________________________________

Look at these two emotions and have a think about what makes you feel this way.

You can pick as many of the answers below as you want. Give the most important a 1 and the least important a 5

Emotion 1			Emotion 2
I feel this way because			I feel this way because
of the people I am with			of the people I am with
I am on my own			I am on my own
of the activity I am doing			of the activity I am doing
of the place I am in			of the place I am in
of something else please write here what that is			of something else please write here what that is

Activity 3

When I am feeling sad or angry I find it helpful to

Sport		Going to church		Speaking to someone I trust
Reading		Listening to music		Listening to advice
Hobbies		Playing music		Being in my culture
On my screen		Being with my friends		Being in a safe space
NOT on my screen		Being with my family		Helping other people
Walking		Being on my own		Doing art and craft

Tick as many as you like

Optional Activity 4

Discussion

Are there things that Churches and Christians can do to help children and young people when they are dealing with challenging emotions?

Can facilitators capture these ideas on a flipchart sheet.

Activity 5

The advice I would give to someone who

 is struggling with their emotions:

If I saw someone feeling sad or angry I

would ………..

 Or draw a picture

Facilitators in churches and Primary Schools please photograph/scan the responses and email them to angela.brymer@yorkdiocese.org. Secondary schools please see if you can collate your responses if there is a particularly large number of them. We will share how we do this at Manor Academy with you to help with final collation. Please contact angela.brymer@yorkdiocese.org to discuss.

Facilitators- we would welcome any of your reflections on the group discussions if you would like to add a couple of paragraphs. Please do add anything on your experience of facilitating these activities and how the young people took part in this process.

We plan to do the Listening Process again and are keen to find other groups of young people to set the agenda question and devise the resources to share with their peers. Do contact Angela Brymer angela.brymer@yorkdiocese.org to find out more.

Thank you for taking the time to be involved in our Listening Process.

Please submit responses to angela.brymer@yorkdiocese.org by 30^th September.