This program is now offered in two forms: a Friday evening to Sunday morning conference or two 6 hour workshops scheduled within the course of a year.

What’s FHYM?

Fundamentals of Healthy Youth Ministry was developed by the Central East Region as a way for youth leaders, volunteer youth advisors, and religious professionals to all come together to learn and practice ways of creating the most impactful, sustaining and safe environments for Middle and High School youth programs to thrive. The concept is simple: with both youth and adults in the room we can learn, converse, role play and practice together so that everyone has a voice and a role in making Youth Programs fun and healthy.

The philosophy behind this training is one of youth-adult partnerships: We seek to develop youth leaders who can partner with adults and adult leaders who can support the growth of youth leadership and who can work in adult-youth partnership.

Who Should Attend?

(Note: “Youth” in this case denotes High Schoolers 9-12 grades or the homeschool equivalent; “Adult” denotes adults 25 or older)

• Youth who are leaders or aspiring leaders in congregational youth groups or regional and national youth programs

• Youth who care about the health of the youth programs they attend

• Youth, adults, RE professionals who want to start a congregation or cluster youth group

• Religious Professionals who want to support youth ministry and volunteers in their congregation, cluster and region

• New youth advisors and seasoned youth advisors who need a refresher

• Coming of Age teachers and mentors, adults leading youth faith formation, volunteers who travel with youth to youth cons and other events

• Any leader in the congregation who wants to include more youth in leadership: board members, committee chairs, choir directors...

But most importantly we encourage congregations to send teams (three or more people with at least one youth and adult) in order to benefit from the collaborative structure of the training. Having both youth and adults on the same page about expectations, safety and how we go about meeting everyone’s needs is so imperative to growing healthy youth programs!

New This Year!

We now offer this material in two forms:

1. Two 6 hour workshops scheduled over the course of the school year - these workshops can be scheduled at the same church or two separate churches and can be anywhere from a week to several months apart. Attendees will be encouraged to attend both workshops but they can each stand alone as well. (Ex. schedule: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. with breaks and lunch)

   • Workshop One Topics: Building community, shared leadership and safety

   • Workshop Two Topics: Going deeper with building community, inclusive communities and conflict

Or

2. Traditional Friday evening to Sunday morning conference: All the good stuff in the above workshops with additional socializing, worship and fun!

Trainings for this school year are currently being scheduled across the Central East Region. Please contact Shannon Harper sharper@uua.org or Evin Carvill-Ziemer eziemer@uua.org if you would like to host or are interested in sending a team.

As events are scheduled around the region, they will appear on the CER youth calendar.