How much does a special needs diagnosis matter at church?
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I'm not actually going to tackle the main question in the title, instead leaving that up to my friend Steve, a special needs ministry leader and pediatric psychiatrist who is blogging about that topic this week. Check it out here.
I can and will answer for our church, though. There's a reason our ministry is called Access. Our aim is to support kids and adults whose unique needs make it more difficult for them to access the community of believers that is the church.
So, does that mean that the individuals have to have a diagnosis for us to help? No, not necessarily.
That's the nice thing about being a church instead of a government agency. We can show love without categories, because Christ first showed us love regardless of our abilities or worth. I was talking with one of our moms about this recently. She's a case manager for kids with special needs who receive Medicaid, so she sometimes has to decide - using the proper federal and state guidelines - which kids are disabled enough to qualify and which ones aren't; it's not fun for her to have to turn a family away. Conversely, I have the freedom to look at the individual in need, instead of looking at a list of qualifying diagnoses, and I love that.
When a child who is new to our church is having a lot of anxiety when being left in Sunday school, sometimes it can be helpful to find a one-on-one buddy to support that child for a month or two. Are we implying that the child has some sort of undiagnosed disability? No, of course not. We're just acknowledging that this particular child needs a little extra support to access his Sunday school class, so we're willing to be there. And we've found that this can be more helpful than having a parent stay each week, because (a) often the anxiety is only present once mom or dad leaves and, on a safety note, (b) parents can only stay if they've completed background checks.
When a toddler or preschooler is having more difficulty sitting still or interacting socially than her peers, sometimes we find a helper for the child or provide some extra training to the teachers to help them serve that child well. Does this mean that the little girl will likely be diagnosed with a special need once she starts school? No. That could happen, but it's not our role to even speculate about that... and we don't want to make that part of our role. We just talk with parents about the behavior we're seeing and offer an extra helper as one possible solution to help the child fully access membership in that class. (Usually in this sort of scenario, the child was technically a member of the class before help was offered but wasn't yet able to truly be involved as a full member and classmate until she had the support she needed.)
In both examples provided above, we continually evaluate the child's needs to decide when the support is no longer needed. It doesn't help the child or the teachers to keep a one-on-one helper in place any longer than necessary.
As the special needs community is reeling from the report that the proposed DSM-V criteria for autism spectrum disorders could exclude some who are currently classified, I'm paying attention so that I can be knowledgeable when the families I serve express concern about how this might impact their families.
However, I'm not concerned about how the proposed DSM criteria will affect what we do at church each week. We aren't bound by diagnostic criteria. In serving the Lord, we get to serve people, not diagnoses.
I love that freedom.
I can and will answer for our church, though. There's a reason our ministry is called Access. Our aim is to support kids and adults whose unique needs make it more difficult for them to access the community of believers that is the church.
So, does that mean that the individuals have to have a diagnosis for us to help? No, not necessarily.
That's the nice thing about being a church instead of a government agency. We can show love without categories, because Christ first showed us love regardless of our abilities or worth. I was talking with one of our moms about this recently. She's a case manager for kids with special needs who receive Medicaid, so she sometimes has to decide - using the proper federal and state guidelines - which kids are disabled enough to qualify and which ones aren't; it's not fun for her to have to turn a family away. Conversely, I have the freedom to look at the individual in need, instead of looking at a list of qualifying diagnoses, and I love that.
When a child who is new to our church is having a lot of anxiety when being left in Sunday school, sometimes it can be helpful to find a one-on-one buddy to support that child for a month or two. Are we implying that the child has some sort of undiagnosed disability? No, of course not. We're just acknowledging that this particular child needs a little extra support to access his Sunday school class, so we're willing to be there. And we've found that this can be more helpful than having a parent stay each week, because (a) often the anxiety is only present once mom or dad leaves and, on a safety note, (b) parents can only stay if they've completed background checks.
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| My daughter Jocelyn with Tyler, who has served as an Access helper |
In both examples provided above, we continually evaluate the child's needs to decide when the support is no longer needed. It doesn't help the child or the teachers to keep a one-on-one helper in place any longer than necessary.
As the special needs community is reeling from the report that the proposed DSM-V criteria for autism spectrum disorders could exclude some who are currently classified, I'm paying attention so that I can be knowledgeable when the families I serve express concern about how this might impact their families.
However, I'm not concerned about how the proposed DSM criteria will affect what we do at church each week. We aren't bound by diagnostic criteria. In serving the Lord, we get to serve people, not diagnoses.
I love that freedom.