Tuesday, January 23, 2007

SEMINAR WORTH ATTENDING

Every year we host a seminar at Journey to designed to help youth workers understand how to best encourage and understand teens. It's called the CORE and it's put on by Youth Specialties. It's an outstanding day of training and this year, on Saturday, February 24th from 8:45am to 1:15pm. It's all about helping hurting kids. Click here for their website.

I think this would be a TERRIFIC seminar and investment for you as a parent, not only in helping your own teen, but in helping and understanding their friends as well.

HERE'S A SUMMARY OF THIS YEARS CONTENT:


  • Learn how to RECOGNIZE and RESPOND to hurting kids.
  • Sad Girl
  • Most often, kids will talk to the people they trust—not necessarily the person they're "supposed" to talk to. While the first step in helping hurting kids involves building a trusting relationship, there is much more that is needed to meet their needs.

    In three essential sessions, the CORE will unpack the issues that will equip your team to effectively minister to hurting kids, and work to prevent further hurt from taking place.

    • Session 1: Understanding Their Hidden Hurts
      This session will address some of the sources of adolescent pain, look at how Jesus reacted to people in pain (either from the actions of others, or from their own actions), and how you can partner with parents, the community, and other ministries to create a safe place for students.
    • Session 2: Critical Skills for Tackling the Tough Stuff
      During this session you'll learn more about the five big issues you'll likely encounter when working with kids who are hurting, and how to address them in a way that brings healing, including: family breakdown, addictions, self-injury, suicide and depression, and crises such as death, natural disasters, accidents, and more.
    • Session 3: Successful Response Strategies
      It's not enough just to know what to look for in hurting kids. You need to be ready to respond to their pain. In this session you'll learn what you can do to help them heal, how to effectively refer students to a professional when needed, and how to protect yourself in these situations.
    Sounds like a sure thing. I wouldn't miss it if were you. It's like getting CPR trained in case of an emergency. It never hurts to be well trained when a teen is in real trouble- be it yours or someone elses. You can shoot me an e-mail at brian@journeycom.org if you'd like to go and we'll get a group going. Our rate will be a little less than if you register online directly, so be sure and register through us.