Are your youth asking for skills around how to be a better friend? Do your youth leaders need training to show up for the emotional well being of their peers? UUA Staff from Congregational Life and Lifespan Faith Engagement are proud to offer this four-module course for youth on Peer Pastoral Care.
This course combines video presentations of core content, featuring UUA staff, and discussion prompts, case studies, and other activities for participants. Topics include: What is Active Listening? Many Ways to Listen, Active Listening Skills, Things to Avoid, Ending a Session, Self Care, Am I the Right Person?, Trauma Informed Care, Who Am I As a Listener? Listening to Collective Pain, Crisis Triage, and Expanding the Circle of Support. This program is intended for high school-age youth. Throughout the course, you will find alternate activity suggestions for a group that skews toward the younger ages.
Religious professionals should facilitate. You will need a co-facilitator, who can be an adult or a youth leader with some experience.
Each of the four modules will take around 2-3 hours as written. Video content in each module is about 60-70 minutes with the rest of the time allocated for activities.
Please use the modules in sequence! It is understood that you may not be able to offer the entire program. If you do not use the entire program, make sure to include a closing time (Module 5).
When you finish leading the course, the UUA would very much like feedback on how it went. Before you close out this UU Institute course you will need to fill out a feedback form that includes youth input received in the closing session, your expectations for the course and your observations of participant experience.
Thank you to our editors: Susan Lawrence and Ted Resnikoff.
Meet the instructors
