We are all made of stories
Youth, Children and Family Network
The world in which we live seems to be getting more and more polarized. It seems we struggle to listen to people who are different to us – and listening to understand someone else, instead of arguing with them or proving them wrong, is even harder. How can we listen to the story of others?
In this course, developed by a group of youth and children workers from EBF, we start with key skills around telling our own story and listening to others’ stories. What is your story of faith, and why is it important? How do we understand our own story, and how do we communicate it? How do we understand other peoples stories, and what do they do to us?
In the second part of the course, we will dive deeper into Trauma-Informed Practice. Children and youth workers across the EBF region are working with children and young people who are suffering the results of trauma. This could be for multiple reasons: poverty, refugee experiences, war, religious persecution or natural disasters. In this section of the course, we want to introduce: what trauma is, the impact of trauma and think about responses to trauma. What does this mean for our practice? What is a trauma-sensitive theology? And what does self-care look like when we are working with traumatized people?
The primary aims of this course are:
Developing skills to learn to share your own story and listen to other stories.
Create awareness of what trauma is including the impact of trauma and responses to trauma
Insight in a trauma-sensitive theology and what this can mean for our practice.
Developing a grounded and multi-voiced community of learning by learning together in different contexts.
We are all made of stories:
a residential of 3 days combined with a 5-week online course which requires 3 hours of work per week
starts in the week of 9 May with the online course which is a blended online, facilitated course, with a Zoom meeting every week. Week one will be an introduction, and then two weeks will focus on stories and two on trauma-informed practice.
the residential will be in the UK (Bampton – near Oxford) from 17-19 June. This weekend will be filled with learning, fellowship, prayer and fun. The atmosphere is vital for learning; therefore, the whole residential, including breaks, meals, and hanging out in the evenings, are essential for the learning experience.
the course is recognised by the IBTS Centre and EBF (European Baptist Foundation for Youth and Children)
Facilitators:
Lea Sakr (Lebanon) Specialties: Children work and the Middle East, Primary school teacher.
Mischa Feyer (Ukraine) Specialties: Youthwork, Decan: Youth institute, Kiev Theological Seminary, and regional youth minister Kiev region in BU Ukraine.
Clare Hooper (UK) Specialties: Family ministry, Director CYF Bristol Baptist College, regional minister BU UK, and leader of "round-table".
David Bunce (Austria) Specialties: Work with youth and young adults. Director Baptist Youth and Children Austria, pastor.
Samantha Mail: (EBFYC/Germany): Specialties: Project management and youth work, and relation to EBFYC
Ingeborg te Loo (IBTS/Holland): Coordinator Learning Network
Roald Zeiffert (EBFYC/Norway): Project manager CYF Learning Network
Extra resources: Matt Norman: Educational specialist, and Tom Arabis: Moodle platform