Children's Worker

PURPOSE OF THE ROLE:

To co-ordinate the children's work (for those up to the age of 11), thus helping YEC proclaim Christ clearly to the children in our church.

To lead in the teaching and evangelising of children and to engage with their parents.

TERMS OF EMPLOYMENT:

Work pattern: equivalent of two days per week ie 16 hours: time allocation to be reviewed after one year. Salary: equivalent to £28,500 pa

Responsible to: The Trustees of the Church Line managed by: the designated link elder. 

To commence: Start date is negotiable. 

Duration: Two years in the first instance

MAIN RESPONSIBILITIES

Coordinating children's work

• To coordinate children's work across all age groups, liaising with team leaders to provide direction and organisation.
• To source good teaching materials for the Sunday children's groups to use and to suggest an overall curriculum approach to ensure a considered teaching pathway for YEC children through the various groups.
• To write or source teaching material for Sunday School and Sparklers groups, to enable - wherever possible - whole church teaching, with sermons and children's teaching following the same passages.
• To work with the Safeguarding Officers concerning the safeguarding of children and to provide oversight of the application of the YEC Safeguarding Policy in all children's work settings This to include: responsibility for an annual review of the best practice guidance for each group; working with the Safeguarding Officers and trustees to implement the recruitment process for new volunteers. In addition, to administer the centrally-held register of all children with accompanying permissions, allergen / first aid information; ensuring that all working with children are suitably DBS checked.

Teaching Children

• To take a leading role in the teaching of children in the church
• To set up a new mid-week children's group for children aged 5 to 11 years
• To join the rota for one of the Sunday children's groups, working alongside others who already run those groups.
• To take a lead on the running of one-off events for children through the year, for example at Easter, Harvest and Christmas, as well as assisting the elders with Family Services. These would all be events for the children within church but would also give opportunities for family evangelism as friends are invited.
• To be part of the Sunday Children's Talk team

Engaging with parents

•  To nurture good relationships with parents and to communicate with them about the groups their children attend. To develop ways to enable parents to discuss Sunday (or mid-week) teaching with their children at home.

Supporting children's group leaders

• To meet once a term with team leaders to; talk about the groups they are leading; encourage them in their work; identify any needs; and pray with them
• To be involved in ongoing training for themselves and to provide training (either direct provision in-house or sourcing externally) to support other leaders in their growth and development eg through training days; externally provided conferences; introduction to new resources/books; arranging whole-team training days where appropriate, or tailored to individual age-group teams.
• To take a lead role in the recruitment and training of new members of the teaching groups

Liaising with the church elders

• To liaise with the elders, via meetings with the link elder, on a regular basis, providing regular reports on children's work and linking in with wider church plans and priorities (vision, annual themes for prayer etc.), as well as receiving support from them

Required Skills

PERSON SPECIFICATION

Essential criteria. 

• To be a member of YEC, or to become one when appointed. This would necessitate being in full agreement with the church's Basis of Faith.
• To have an up-to-date DBS check.
• To be committed to growing as a disciple of Jesus through personal Bible reading and prayer.
• To be a committed member of the church family, through attendance at Sunday services and Home Groups.
• To have been involved in Children's Work teams and to have delivered child-appropriate teaching in a variety of contexts.
• To be organised, proactive, collaborative

Desirable criteria

• Some formal Bible-teaching/theological training.
• Experience of training others in children's work.
• Sickness-pay provision, holiday, resolving problems and ending the employment will be dealt with in the written statement of employment that the successful candidate will receive separately