Gearing up for a coming year of youth ministry in your congregation? UUA Staff from Congregational Life and Lifespan Faith Engagement are proud to offer this four-part orientation for youth ministry adult volunteers. This course is a combination of video presentations featuring UUA staff and small group discussion often centering around case studies.

Topics include: Healthy Adult Roles & Relationships; Safety; Youth Empowerment; Covenant and Community-building. This course is designed for a religious professional to lead with a group of volunteers who will be working with youth ages 14-18. Much of the same material is useful for those working with younger youth, but may require adapting. Religious professionals should facilitate this orientation by having their team watch the content videos, and then leading the discussion of reflection questions and case studies for each part.

Each of the four modules will take around 75 minutes as written. Video content in each module is about 30 minutes with the rest of the time discussion, case studies, and presentation of the congregation specific policies, volunteer job descriptions, and place in the congregation’s organizational chart.