This the first of a three part series on pastoral care for and with youth for High School aged students and adults. Session 1 stands alone and future sessions are optional additions.
Pastoral care is an essential part of religious community and an essential part of caring for each other as human beings. We each can be present to each other as we go through both the hard and joyful parts of life. Compassion, witness, listening, and empathy are gifts we can all give each other.
To learn more about this series please visit the Peer Pastoral Care workshop series webpage.
Part 1 - Introduction to Peer Pastoral Care and Listening Skills. This training explores what pastoral care is and gives youth a chance to practice core skills to pastoral care through video and text role play. This training is appropriate to all youth. This training is also very helpful for adults who work with youth.
Youth come to this training with questions like:
- Am I supposed to be good at giving advice?
- What should I say after someone shares something hard?
- Should I ask questions?
This training covers all of that and more! Includes the difference between pastoral care and giving advice, why giving advice isn’t always the most helpful thing to do, and practice using the new skills.
Part 2 - Supporting Youth in Crisis - May 14, 2022. This training explores how to support youth in crisis--when what is facing them feels overwhelming and they may need more than listening and compassionate support. We will also explore the ethics of pastoral care including the limits and need to expand confidentiality to help those experiencing harm or in danger of harm. This training discusses topics including child abuse, intimate partner violence, self-harm, and suicidal ideation. For this reason, we will ask for a reference email from a congregational religious professional for all participants and send an email to youth’s parents describing the contents so that if they have concerns about their youth’s participation they can discuss those concerns with their youth and contact regional staff.
Part 3 - Pastoral Care After Microaggressions - May 21, 2022. This training will explore the intersection of oppression, identity, and pastoral care with a focus on providing pastoral care when oppression, such as microaggressions, has occurred. We will explore the dynamics of providing pastoral care to someone who has experienced the microaggression both as someone with a similar identity and someone without; providing pastoral care to someone who has hurt someone else through microaggressions; and providing pastoral care to a witness or community member.
This training takes place online and will have breaks incorporated into the schedule.
Presenters are Congregational Life Staff Rev. Evin Carvill-Ziemer and youth Max Solomon-Frye.
Cost: Registration fees is $15 per person for each session, $30 if you do all three sessions. If you are unable to pay the fee, please request a waiver on the registration form.
Important: To ensure we have appropriate youth/adult ratios, congregations should plan to send an adult if they have any youth participating in this training. If you are unable to send an adult please contact Shannon Harper at sharper@uua.org.
Register Now
Please note: To participate in this workshop all youth must complete the UUA Online Drop-in Form. This form only needs to be completed once per year. If you have not completed this form since August of 2021 please do so ASAP. Once the form is completed, an email to parents will be sent requiring a signature, and an email to religious educators will be sent requiring approval. When the registration process is complete you will receive an email notification along with an invitation to join the Young UU Project (YUUP) a national network of youth and adult supporters who converse through Mighty Networks platform, meet over Zoom and share youth opportunities across the country.
Copy the Google (ICS) or Outlook (ICS) link address to subscribe to this event (or download the file to import it) in a program which supports the iCal format.