Key Ideas

• Good, clear communication builds trust with parents and carers. It gives them clear information about what you are doing spiritually with their children and enables them to ask questions. It also honours them in their role as parent or carer and allows them to make choices they are comfortable with.
• Depending on the group, you will be communicating in different ways: for example a letter home from school for your after school club, a flyer to go out to local homes, social media posts. For an established group, you may have something like a WhatsApp group to keep in touch or send monthly emails.
• It is good practice to be clear about the spiritual content of your programme, e.g. 'bible stories, songs and prayer’ or ‘exploring the claims of Jesus being God this term’.
• Use clear language – ‘prayer’ not ‘chatting to God’, ‘Bible’ not ‘the word’ so that everyone can understand what you mean.
• Clearly include your contact details / church information and who to get in touch with to find out more.
• If you see parents and carers briefly for drop off and pick up, prioritise greeting them, chatting, getting to know them as best you can. Give them flyers / letters personally - ‘this is just to let you know what we’re doing next term, it’s really interesting …’ Session 2 Part 1 will be helpful with this.
• You might find this article about putting parents at the centre, from the Parenting for Faith website, helpful.