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Radical Hospitality: Creating Beloved Community for All Children
Radical Hospitality: Creating Beloved Community for All Children
Featuring Workshop Leader Sally Patton
Saturday, May 19, 2012 from 8:30 am - 3:30 pm
Unitarian Fellowship of West Chester, PA
Please follow this link for online registration.
The purpose of this Involve workshop is to train religious educators, ministers and lay leaders to minister to children with different ways of learning, being and knowing and insure their successful inclusion into the life of our UU congregations. This one day training includes: assessment methods, teaching strategies, sensitivity training, hands-on training activities, and discussions concerning pastoral and congregational care.
Serving children with special needs is an immensely complicated process. While our churches are not social service agencies, it is critically important for religious education, pastoral care and social advocates to understand the complexity and enormous challenges and stress families experience with a child with special challenges. In order to provide an effective and compassionate ministry, congregations need to understand the complex spiritual, ethical and moral concerns that affect how we as a society treat children and youth with special needs. Involve training will help us build a welcoming ministry for all families that want to attend our churches. Ministering to children with differences helps us not only to be more creative about ministry to all our children, but also helps us as adults to reassess or reaffirm our own beliefs.
Cost: $40. Parents: $30. Teams of three or more: $30 per person. Includes morning refreshments and lunch. Limited scholarships are available.
Workshop leader Sally Patton, Ed. M. Developmental Psychology, has advocated and worked for children with disabilities for over 35 years. For the past several years, she has written and conducted workshops on ministering to children with special needs in faith communities and on spiritual parenting of children who have been labeled. She also offers private consultations for parents who are interested in exploring the spiritual questions that arise from parenting an atypical child. Sally is the author of Welcoming Children with Special Needs, a Guidebook for Faith Communities. Her new book, Don’t Fix Me I’m not Broken; Changing Our Minds about Ourselves and Our Children, published by O-Books is available to order in both paperback and eBook formats from amazon.com. Sally conducts Involve Trainings around the country to train religious educators, ministers, and lay leaders to assist and educate faith communities as to the importance of ministering to children with special challenges. Sally is the mother of two children, one of whom has a special needs label. Her website is: www.embracechildspirit.org. Contact: sally [at] embracechildspirit [dot] org.
