Video Transcript: Universal Design for Children and Youth Settings - Part 1

So, I think one of the most important things is in this category of be prepared. What can you do as you prepare to receive, and you know, again, you're expecting children and youth of all abilities. So let me give you one idea and several applications of this. 

I think it's important in whatever way you can ahead of time to give information. There are cool ways to do this on websites, of course, but there's also some book resources that can work, so let me just ask this.  Who have you, if you're going on a trip are going out of town and staying in some kind of a hotel or inn, how many of you would look that up before you actually got there? Right? You want to see it? Well, I will let you know that most of us check things out. We want to know what we're getting into. What do they serve? Do they serve a breakfast? Do I pack a swimsuit? Are the prices reasonable? How many stars does it get? Has it been reviewed? You know, we want to see what's the furniture like. Where's the parking? How's the parking laid out? Do I have to pay for that? 

There’s this whole list of questions that often we answer by going onto that hotels website. We look for pictures; we look for a video tour. I think sometimes we need to give that video tour for the people who are part of our children and youth ministry or worship. This can apply to lots of different settings. But imagine if in the safety of a home, a parent and a child could sit together and watch what's going to happen, be introduced to some key people, their faces and names that they might see, too; what's going to happen. 

So we also suggest, this is a resource from our organization and, just in case you wonder, a lot of the resources have the name CLC network on it. We just rebranded recently to this organization called All Belong, so CLC network - All Belong - same organization; it's just people understand All Belong more than they understood CLC network. So in any event, one of the tools that we have, if you go on the All Belong website, is this thing called a Church Welcome Story. And basically, it's a guide for giving information. You can give information to individuals, or you can do it for a group. 

Let me just walk you through this. And I'll tell you how we've used this. This was given for a specific individual; universal design wise that would be responsive to Donovan. But Universal Design wise, we've had people leave that blank and asked parents to glue in a picture of their child so you can give it to all. But here is this: Hi, my name is Donovan, and I want to tell you about my church. Here's a picture of my church. It's called New Life SDA. I stay with my family for a little while. And then I usually go to a room for children's worship. Here's a picture of where I can be with my friends. 

Now, clearly, there are many versions of that. So the book is actually in the instruction guide. It takes you to a website; you insert your own pictures and alter the words, but basically, it's the hotel version of what's going to happen. 

So let's think about this. Imagine that you're going on a youth group overnight, or a mission trip. And if you can create some kind of a preview of that either in book form or online so that people can know what's going to be happening before you get there, you watch anxiety just come down a whole lot. Remember, we're all looking up our hotels. And yet so often we expect people to just show up and go on the youth group trip without any preparation. Could you show where people sleep, what kind of food you might have? Could you show some of the activities you're going to be doing, the terrain? All of that can really be helpful in lowering anxiety. 

So whether it's done on a website, whether it's done via pictures, or little booklet form, whatever that looks like, it is really helpful to give information ahead of time to people before they visit or even as they transition. So this was my practical use. 

I failed to mention earlier that I was the children's ministry director in my own church for about 14 years, when I was actually piloting materials we were using at Zealand Christian, turning them into church speak and church environment. And we experimented a whole bunch, but one of the things that I did was every summer the children would come in that first summer day. We gave our typical staff, the regular staff sort of the summer off and we brought in all of these volunteers that were just covering for the summer. And they were great. They were fun. But the kids were really confused. 

And the little ones would cry, like, what happened to all of my teachers? And why are we in a different room? And why are these big kids in here with us? And one of the things that we found out, or I've tried, was to send home just a story with a kids; Summer at the Vineyard Docks. And I sent home - Hey, summer is a time when we can do some things differently - I just sent home sort of an order, pictures of what we were going to do, the different rooms and the different people that they might see over the summer, and it was just amazing to watch the difference between the past summers and the summer, that I started sending those home, because kids came in excited. They were ready. They knew what was going to happen. They knew who would be there. They knew what room we were going to be in, all because they had gotten some information ahead of time. So whether you're preparing for a youth group trip, an adult mission trip, a children's ministry change, like summers, whatever that might be, might I suggest think hotel preview? What am I looking for in that? And how can I offer that to people along the way?

I think, another thing in preparation is we need to remember that as we recruit volunteers, as we put people in place and children and youth programs, are they expecting children and youth of all abilities to be part of that setting? So part of universal design is connecting with those who are leaders, giving them some tools. How can we give them what they need, so that they feel prepared when that youth group member walks in and might have a significant vision difference. Or you may have a second grader with autism spectrum disorder. And they don't take this as a shock, but they take this as Okay, so we have kids of varied abilities. And part of that, I think, is just huge for leaders. 

Again, if you go on our website, we have lots of stuff. These are just some of the some of the pieces that we have in place on our website. This is the book I've been referring to about helping kids include kids with disabilities. Do you recognize those puzzle pieces? 

Again, we need leaders to be trained, but I think we also need to train our peers. Can we give them some tools and understanding? I often use just those puzzle pieces. I don't have to use the word disability. We all have greens; we all have Pinks. We fit together like a puzzle in the body of Christ. And there's a very specific lesson plan that I drew up to go with that as well. So, whether it's DVDs calling in somebody from your community to give your leaders some information.

One of the things that we offer, and I'm just going to mention this, I'm not trying to be a salesperson, but this is a helpful piece that we offer through All Belong is church membership. So you can have an annual membership with All Belong, and we are creating these three to six-minute training videos that are useful for volunteers. We found that people now don't really always like to watch a 60-minute training video. But they will more than delight in being part of the three to five minute ones that you might send out during the week. Hey, watch this. We'll talk about it next Sunday. So really trying to create a list of things that churches can just, our member churches can just use within their congregations and communities. So again, how are you training? How are you preparing to receive and create places of belonging by equipping peers, by equipping leaders? And I think that's important. 

The other thing that I think is really important, although this person may funnel into both a responsive design or shredded cheese, and sprinkle within children and youth, is to have that disability or inclusion coordinator, or your accessibility coordinator, or your puzzle piece coordinator, I don't really care what you call that person, but somebody who people can go to to get advice; somebody when that family walks in and they have a child like that five-year-old that passed away with several areas of disability, there's somebody to go to or committee to go to. So to have some identified people to say, look, we're the shredded cheese, people for children's ministry and youth ministry or we can help think that through. So just a tip with that to make sure you have that person in place as part of that universal design. 

I think another thing you need to be ready to do is be prepared at that meet and greet time when people come in. What are you going to do if you have a family walk in and then that fifth grader happens to have Down syndrome? Do you have a plan? What does your visitor station look like? Do you have a plan in place? So I think sometimes, some congregations have been prepared at that meet and greet time and some have simply been excited about having some on call buddies, having a system in place where they can quickly grab information about strengths and areas of challenge. So to plan that out, what are we going to do and what is our response? We'll talk a little bit more about that in the Responsive Design section as well. 

Some communities have issued parking passes, specially designed parking spots where individual families might not qualify for that accessible parking placard but they have created some other spots for families that they feel could appreciate having some space closest to the door of entry. So just something to think about with that.

Another thing, to have that data collection system. We talked about that earlier, where you're asking those questions, and then as the children's ministry, or youth director goes through that they can see, oh, we might need a little more information that that intakes system signals a process. Well, now we're going to call our shredded cheese person or our accessible coordinator and get them involved in that. So to make sure you thought it through ahead of time, what's your plan? What's your system? And do you have that in place?

Some people in that system have decided on what I simply will call Insta-buddies. They have a system where they invite buddies to come in, get trained, and these are people who are very comfortable slipping in beside that fifth grader who may happen to have Down syndrome, while you assess are your universal design features enough or not? So they literally, they recruit this person. 

Communities that are still doing Vacation Bible School or have that as an offering, many times having just recruiting for this position of instability. Somebody who can just slip in into a group or beside an individual, as the need might arise can be really, really helpful. So to train a person who's comfortable just being in that place. 

I will make just a comment. Universal design is great; Insta-buddies are great. We had one church, too, where one person had their cell phone number by the visitor station. That's the only role they were willing to play with in children's ministry. She was a special Ed teacher. She said, Look, I'm not going to teach every week. But if you ever need somebody to just step in at the last minute, here's my phone number. So that's the role she filled in children and youth ministry. So think about what works. But to have a system in place is part of universal design. We’re ready for this; we thought this through. 

One thing I just wanted to mention is that sometimes you will get an individual where you really know that this is not going to be successful the first week out. And just a couple of things. I think it's okay at times to say to a parent, we want your child to be part of this setting. We just need a little bit of time to put some things in place, so give us a couple of weeks. 

Another congregation, I thought this was a great response, too, said, you know what? We want you to be here. We want you to be part of worship, if you wish. But would you come with your child for two weeks, and give us your picture of what might be challenging for your child, of what areas will work well? And I would, you know, then use that parent in that capacity to really try to figure out, do we need a personalized plan? Are the universal design features enough in this setting? But that preparation is really, really important. 

So I would love for you to just take a minute or two and think about what was the best idea you have heard thus far for children and youth? Is it creating that hotel preview online? Is it having some Insta-buddies there? Is it doing some kind of a training? What is it that you heard that you think would be super helpful as you prepare to say we are a children's ministry, where we are expecting children of all abilities to be here. 

So think about that. Are there stories you're ready to write? You know, maybe your experience is the same as mine that you have seen kids be highly anxious over certain transitions or certain things? How can you make that better through stories and presenting information? So take just a minute before you start the last part of this weekly presentation. Take just a minute to think what is the best idea that you heard so far, and one that you are ready to go after and put in place. 

Remember that's the other beauty of universal design is you could decide to stock up on noise cancelling headphones, get them in place and put it in the bulletin by next week. 

So, these aren't things that you have to wait to do. Pick your favorites. Pick the ones that make sense in your community and put them in place.

So, reflect on this best idea and then restart when you're ready for some more good ideas to try via Universal Design.