‘All Inclusive?’ – How to Include Autistic Children and Young People in Church

‘All Inclusive?’ – How to Include Autistic Children and Young People in Church – accessibility, inclusion, belonging, and spiritual development for all. An Urban Saints event. Includes a full-colour A4 workbook, a copy of the accompanying Grove Youth series book, access to video learning, and an interactive online group training session.

Without considered and intentional measures, many aspects of church life can pose challenges for Autistic children and young people.

This practical training provides useful advice on how to make church a space where Autistic children and young people can thrive. It urges children’s, youth and families workers to be agents of change within both their own ministries and the wider church community, building a better place for accessibility, inclusion, belonging and spiritual development for all.

Areas covered include:
– What Autism is (and isn’t!), medical model vs. social model, brain overloads, myth busting etc.
– Barriers experienced by Autistic children and young people in church, including physical, programme and people barriers.
– Reducing or removing these barriers, and who can help.
– How these changes can create belonging for everyone, including stories from Autistic young people, their families, and church children’s/youth workers. 10 ways to create belonging.
– Further resources, links, and information
The ‘All Inclusive?’ – How to Include Autistic Children and Young People in Church training programme includes:
– A comprehensive colour A4 training workbook with a wealth of information and resources sent to each participant in advance.
– A copy of the accompanying Grove Youth series book which provides further context and depth to the training content.
– Access to a series of videos to explore and learn through, covering a range of associated topics.
– Finally, a Zoom session including discussion groups, case studies, Q&A, and signposting to further resources to investigate, as we wrap this programme up together.
– Participants completing at least three of the Urban Saints ‘All Inclusive?’ training programmes will receive a certificate.

“Thank you Mark for this and for the excellent session on Saturday – This is all very new to me – it was really helpful and I will be processing everything!”

“Thank you so much for the training yesterday, despite having a lot of experience as a teacher and a parent and godparent to several children with sen and additional needs I always find your training helpful.”

“Fab morning spent doing the ‘All Inclusive? – How to Include Autistic Children and Young People in Church’ training. Really enjoyed it Mark Arnold!”

“It was fantastic as always. Got some more great actions points to put into place. Thank you .”