A spokesperson for the charity said, "Many churches tell us that they have limited resources to carry out their youth work and yet at the same time, they recognise the need to offer a high quality service to their young people.

"This collection of documents provides clergy, youth workers and volunteers with the tools they need to get their youth work started, to develop what they already have in place or to plan for future improvements."

The Toolkit is not an exhaustive manual; it simply contains documents that its authors think will make it easier for churches to achieve a good baseline standard in youth work practice. Users can edit and adapt the individual documents to meet their church’s needs. The only request is that anyone making use of the Toolkit credit it as the source.

Using the toolkit

The Toolkit has been divided into easy to use sections: ‘Starting out’ is concerned with setting up and managing a new youth activity. ‘Sample guidance documents’ are a collection of various documents which cover the main aspects of youth work practice and procedure in the church. ‘Youth worker recruitment and employment’ contains all the elements required to budget for, advertise, recruit and employ a youth worker. ‘Volunteers’ addresses the recruitment and support of volunteer youth workers. ‘Youth club resources’ is a collection of useful forms and templates to assist with the day-to-day running of a youth club. 

You can access each chapter of the toolkit by using the navigation bar on the left hand side of the page, or by clicking on the following links:

1. Starting out
2. Sample policies and guidance
3. Youth worker recruitment and employment
4. Volunteers
5. Youth club resources

This Toolkit is a product of the Youth Development Project’s manager’s and senior practitioner’s current and past experiences of working with young people in church and youth work settings, spanning a total of 32 years.

"From our time spent doing youth work in the voluntary and statutory sectors, we have come across some really excellent resources and have attempted to take the best examples from our own practice and put them together in one volume for churches to use and hopefully benefit from," the spokesperson said.

"With this in mind, we acknowledge that there may be elements of other people’s ideas running through parts of the Toolkit. It would be impossible to cite all our fabulous sources of inspiration from our own youth work experiences but needless to say we have benefited greatly from these examples as they have helped shape our practice today."

ENDS

Notes

• The information contained in this Toolkit is up to date at the time of writing. The Children's Society have made every effort to ensure the contents are accurate and reliable. However, it warns people should not rely exclusively on the Toolkit and certainly not replace it for professional advice. The Children’s Society cannot accept liability for people’s acts or omissions that are based solely on the contents of this document.
• The Toolkit has been developed for use by parishes within the Church of England. Elements may be cited only where the Children’s Society Youth Development Project of the Diocese of London is acknowledged as the source.