back to Employing a Youth Worker
- Ensure for the first 7 months of employment your youth worker sits down monthly with your regional youth enabler for coaching
- for more information on First Year of Youth Ministry Coaching program
- After the coaching is complete, ensure the youth worker has a regular meeting with an external supervisor
- for more information on supervision and to see a list of local external supervisors
- Appoint an on-site supervisor. Regular (weekly or fortnightly) supervision is required by the person directly overseeing the youth worker in the church. This on-site supervisor’s responsibilities include:
- Providing adequate supervision of the worker as they fulfil their ministry responsibilities
- Ensuring that the worker’s ministry responsibilities are appropriate to their level of expertise
- Meeting regularly with the worker in relation to their completion of assigned tasks and skill formation
- Provide a support group. 4 to 6 members of the congregation who can be advocates and cheerleaders for the youth ministry initiatives.
- Ensure your new youth worker attends appropriate trainings such as
- Encourage your youth worker to join a local youth workers networking group
- Use the Sustainable Practice Guide. This guide has seven simple practices that your church can do that will help a youth worker stay employed their role for the long haul. Research continues to show that when a youth worker stays in their role longer than five years that the fruit of their ministry far outweighs what they can achieve in one to four years. We recommend that someone on Parish Council (or a similar governing body) is given responsibility to ensure that the parishes living out the practices suggested in the sustainable practice guide.
- Resolving conflict. Some level of conflict is inevitable in any employment situation. Employers and employees have a tendency to hold off on critical feedback around areas of performance that they would like to see improved, often waiting for an annual review to do so. Our strong encouragement is to bring up any issue at the regular on-site