-Prepare for the possibility of people with special needs attending and know what it would look like within your ministry if someone came in a wheelchair, or with a child with behavioral or developmental special needs
-Have some on call buddies that can help a child to integrate into your programming with assistance
-If needed, find a quiet area the child and buddy (keeping in mind safety concerns with being 1:1) can go to if the child needs to have some time-away from the typical programming
-Talk with families about how their specific child can be integrated in to the church, what support they need, what things they enjoy, and what things to be aware of
-Specifically teach staff/volunteers about attachment and what it means in a general sense for children who are adopted to need to form a strong bond with their parents as well as the reasons that may be difficult. Ask the parents what boundaries they have for their child regarding church workers and affection.
-Find out if there are any specific boundaries the child needs to keep, (for example, is there a behavior the child may exhibit that is a pre-curser to further issues?)
-Don't presume that a child cannot- rather, presume that a child 'can' and then provide help as needed. Take the parent's lead on what they want to share about the child, watch how they give directions to the child, and ask for suggestions of how best to interact if you're unsure.
- Ask the parents if there are any behavior concerns and how the parent would like potential difficulties to be dealt with, and make sure there is a way to contact parents during the service- often a phone with texting is the easiest way to unintrusively ask a quick question.
-Provide a quick write-up at the end of church time with around 2 sentences of what the child did during church if the child is non-verbal or otherwise delayed. You can write it on the back of their craft or coloring sheet so the parents can ask "prompted questions" to discuss their experience with the child on the way home, just as a parent of a typical child would ask what they talked about at church.
*When we leave our children with someone new, we would rather be interrupted to be asked a question then to return to pick up the child and find that they had a question that they didn't ask. I think this is true for *most* parents of children with special needs. Confidence in caring for our children is wonderful, but humility to ask says you recognize that no two children are the same, nor are two families, and that they recognize that it is important to keep the parents "in" on what is being done in the room.
-Have some on call buddies that can help a child to integrate into your programming with assistance
-If needed, find a quiet area the child and buddy (keeping in mind safety concerns with being 1:1) can go to if the child needs to have some time-away from the typical programming
-Talk with families about how their specific child can be integrated in to the church, what support they need, what things they enjoy, and what things to be aware of
-Specifically teach staff/volunteers about attachment and what it means in a general sense for children who are adopted to need to form a strong bond with their parents as well as the reasons that may be difficult. Ask the parents what boundaries they have for their child regarding church workers and affection.
-Find out if there are any specific boundaries the child needs to keep, (for example, is there a behavior the child may exhibit that is a pre-curser to further issues?)
-Don't presume that a child cannot- rather, presume that a child 'can' and then provide help as needed. Take the parent's lead on what they want to share about the child, watch how they give directions to the child, and ask for suggestions of how best to interact if you're unsure.
- Ask the parents if there are any behavior concerns and how the parent would like potential difficulties to be dealt with, and make sure there is a way to contact parents during the service- often a phone with texting is the easiest way to unintrusively ask a quick question.
-Provide a quick write-up at the end of church time with around 2 sentences of what the child did during church if the child is non-verbal or otherwise delayed. You can write it on the back of their craft or coloring sheet so the parents can ask "prompted questions" to discuss their experience with the child on the way home, just as a parent of a typical child would ask what they talked about at church.
*When we leave our children with someone new, we would rather be interrupted to be asked a question then to return to pick up the child and find that they had a question that they didn't ask. I think this is true for *most* parents of children with special needs. Confidence in caring for our children is wonderful, but humility to ask says you recognize that no two children are the same, nor are two families, and that they recognize that it is important to keep the parents "in" on what is being done in the room.