Special needs ministry policies: Start with the WHY
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This post is part of a series on special needs ministry policies. Please see yesterday's post for a little more context: Your special needs ministry policies are worthless if they only live on a shelf.
When someone asks about policies, they're usually asking about how our ministry works - what we do, what our procedures are, how we handle certain circumstances. However, it is just as important – for everyone on your team, from staff to volunteers and even to yourself – to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. What’s the point? What’s our mission? What do we want to accomplish? What does the Bible have to say about this? What qualifies as a “special need” anyway?
When someone asks about policies, they're usually asking about how our ministry works - what we do, what our procedures are, how we handle certain circumstances. However, it is just as important – for everyone on your team, from staff to volunteers and even to yourself – to know why you’re doing what you’re doing. What’s the point? What’s our mission? What do we want to accomplish? What does the Bible have to say about this? What qualifies as a “special need” anyway?
You need policies, but you also need a purpose. That's why our policies are called the Access Ministry Guidebook, with the subheading Purposes, Policies, and Procedures to Enable Ministry. The "how" aspects of your policies do matter, and I’m working on many of those pieces right now for our guidebook. We do need to document what the plan is when a new family arrives and how to handle bathroom needs in special needs ministry settings. We do need to outline how to handle common issues. We do need to define rations of adults to children in various settings. All those "how" elements do matter. If you only include the what and the why without the how, then you'll have a concept with no practical application.
Our policies start with the what and the why and then dive into the how. The first five sections are listed below and linked to previous posts in which I discussed the topic.
- The church’s mission/vision statement. My church has placed a great deal of trust in me as I lead Access Ministry with my husband. As a reminder that we operate within our church body and as part of that larger vision statement, we put that in the forefront. Because we're technically part of what we call "family discipleship ministry" at our church, we also have included the purpose statement for that ministry area.
- The special needs ministry mission statement and goals. We have tweaked this a little from when I posted it, but it's still close to what you'll find here.
- The biblical foundation for special needs ministry. I usually put this first in any communication we have, because what the Bible has to say is far more important than what we've set as our mission statements. However, we've found that (a) it helps for our folks to have a little context for why these verses fuel our ministry and (b) that when verses are listed first, many people skip past the verses to find the meat of the guidebook (overlooking the fact that the meatiest parts are those verses!). That's why the biblical foundation is section three in our guide. It isn't exactly like this post, but that's one of the places we started from. Also, you might want to check out my Scripture Saturday posts in which I post verses related to special needs ministry.
- Clarifying note: Ministering with NOT ministering to: The wording of this post is very similar to the wording of our policy on this.
- What are “special needs” anyway? I realized that many of our volunteers were asking this question. See below for how we've answered it.
Defining special needs can be tricky. Here’s the draft from our guidebook about that topic:
You'll see that I answered the question and sidestepped it all at once. Why? Well, the definition of "special need" in a church setting can vary depending on the context and stage. For example, a child with Down syndrome at our church - I'll call him "Jeremy" - is in elementary school and needs a one-on-one buddy to support him in his class; without that support, there would be barriers to his involvement in class. When Jeremy was two, though, the developmental differences between him and his same-aged peers weren't significant; Jeremy didn't have any barriers to involvement then, so he didn't need much extra support from Access Ministry. On the other hand, we have another elementary student who has Down syndrome and does just fine in her grade's class without any support; even though she's older than Jeremy, her needs are different. You see, it's not the disability label that requires support; it's the needs of the individual.While the educational definition of disability includes 13 handicapping conditions and the federal definition for adults is even broader than that, we aren’t concerned with every one of those categories. What we do care about is people, and we primarily focus on those disabilities and special needs that could hinder an individual’s involvement in our church body. For example, we need to know about food allergies, particularly for those who are too young to protect themselves, because we do serve snacks and other food at times and we want to keep individuals with allergies safe. If an individual’s mobility is limited in some way, then we wouldn’t ask him or her to climb the stairs and we would want to be intentional about involving him or her during game times or outside play times instead of, for example, parking the wheelchair in a corner and ignoring the person. If a disability impacts a person’s behavior or ability to learn, play, or interact with others, then we may need to make some accommodation or modification for their involvement in our church.
Many special needs have names – like autism, Down syndrome, seizure disorders, cerebral palsy, and others. While it is helpful to know those names, it is more important to know the individual. Each label is an attribute of a real individual created by God and not the defining characteristic for that person.
Tomorrow I'll be sharing a fantastic guest post with you (so excited!), and next week I'll dive into the "how" parts of our guidebook.
Finally, if you're thinking, "wow, I would love a copy of this Access Ministry Guidebook!" ... be encouraged! As soon as it is complete and has been reviewed by some colleagues, I'll be sharing it here at no charge. I would love to help equip other churches - your church, perhaps! - in special needs ministry. I'm willing and eager to share anything we're learning at Providence to help other churches.
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And a couple of quick logistical notes:
(1) I've added the option to subscribe via email. I've always had a feed which provided this option, but I recently realized that it wasn't a simple process to subscribe, especially if you're not tech-savvy. If you want my posts to come to your inbox, enter your email in the box on the right, just under my picture and bio. You'll have to complete a couple of additional quick steps after that, but it's a painless process!
(2) I'm thinking about adding one book review - related to special needs ministry - every week or every other week. I think it could be helpful, but I have a few concerns. I would LOVE to get your input on any/all of these:
Finally, if you're thinking, "wow, I would love a copy of this Access Ministry Guidebook!" ... be encouraged! As soon as it is complete and has been reviewed by some colleagues, I'll be sharing it here at no charge. I would love to help equip other churches - your church, perhaps! - in special needs ministry. I'm willing and eager to share anything we're learning at Providence to help other churches.
~+~
And a couple of quick logistical notes:
(1) I've added the option to subscribe via email. I've always had a feed which provided this option, but I recently realized that it wasn't a simple process to subscribe, especially if you're not tech-savvy. If you want my posts to come to your inbox, enter your email in the box on the right, just under my picture and bio. You'll have to complete a couple of additional quick steps after that, but it's a painless process!
(2) I'm thinking about adding one book review - related to special needs ministry - every week or every other week. I think it could be helpful, but I have a few concerns. I would LOVE to get your input on any/all of these:
- I am critical of several of them - though not all! - and I don't want to become one of those ministry bloggers who tears others down with my words. I know I can disagree in a civil way, but is it a good idea?
- I have been toying with the idea of writing my own book. Would it be in poor taste to publicly discuss other books? My concern is that I don't want any critiques to seem as if I'm just being critical so I can later say, "...and this is why you should buy my book." (Am I overthinking this?)
- Currently I post the weekly round-up every Monday, a guest post at least a couple Fridays a month, and a passage from the Bible every Saturday, with Sunday as the blog's day of rest. Adding a regular book review would take one of the remaining days. Is it worth it?