In this episode, Sandra Peoples will walk you through the process her church uses for creating Individualized Spiritual Plans for their students! It helps keep everyone focused on the main goal for the students when they are with us at church—the gospel!
Listen now in your favorite podcast app!
Quick Links:
Recruiting, Training and Supporting Buddies in Your Children’s and Youth Ministries
Taking a tour of our special-needs ministry buddy rooms
If you enjoyed this episode, you may also like:
049: VBS: A Plan for Inclusion with Sandra Peoples
041: Reimagine with Beth Golik
023: Supporting Special-Needs Families with Stephanie Hubach with Sandra Peoples
Transcript:
Hi friends! Happy first week of June! Summer can be such a busy time for churches, especially in children’s ministry and youth ministry—camp, VBS, all the things! But it’s also a great time to evaluate how things are going in your ministry and start planning for the new school year. One thing that’s on our to do list over the summer is to update the ISPs we use for the kids and teens our ministry supports. An ISP is an Individualized Spiritual Plan, and a way we support the spiritual growth of our students and a way we communicate with everyone on their team. In this episode, I’ll walk you through:
how we determine ISP goals and placement for the student
a rubric of ideas for spiritual goals
how we communicate the goals with teachers and buddies
examples of goals and the modifications we make for the students
Ready? Let’s jump in!
At our church, our special needs ministry’s goal is to communicate the gospel to every child in a way they understand and in an environment where they feel comfortable. Because every child is unique, we have developed ISPs for each one—individualized spiritual plans! Similar to what the students have at school under their IEPs, our ISPs take into consideration their likes, dislikes, strengths, goals, and behaviors. We decide on the goals after we get to know the student and by talking to the parents about what goals they have while their child is with us at church.
Here’s how we determine ISP goals and placement for the student:
Our ministry serves any student who needs adjustments to the lesson or the environment to understand the message and feel comfortable. This includes children and teens who have special needs, learning disabilities, and mental health or behavioral diagnoses. This also includes children without any diagnosis but behavior that communicates a need for adjustments.
New families who know they will be part of our special needs ministry fill out an intake form that asks questions about what they enjoy, what causes stress, and what we need to know to care for them while they are with us (questions about mobility, communication, toileting, and allergies). We have a hybrid model of disability ministry at our church that includes buddies in the typical classes, sensory classes (similar to self contained classes in schools), and a reverse inclusion class for teens and young adults. We place a new student in the environment the student and parents feel most comfortable with to start off. We usually spend a couple weeks observing the student before we set the goals. The student and the parents can be part of the goal setting process if they’d like to!
When setting the goals for the student, we remember the #1 goal—the gospel! Everything is for the purpose of the student being able to hear and respond to the gospel.
The goals at school, therapy, and home will meet a variety of needs for the students, so it’s important we stay focused on our goal because the student is with us for such a short time compared to how much time he/she spends in other places.
We have different categories for the goals that cover the student’s spiritual growth and social/behavior goals that are specific to church. You can find them linked in our show notes. (Rubric for spiritual goals) Here are a couple examples:
Prayer:
Pray with prompting
Repeat a simple prayer (like at snack time)
Sit quietly during prayer time and listen
Share prayer requests (when appropriate)
Lead group prayer
Pray for friend who shares a request
Social/behavior goals:
Identify by name friends and helpers at church
Participate in class discussion with respect (taking turns to let everyone talk)
Speak kindly to friends and helpers
Participate in game time on a team or with friends (remembering to follow the rules and have good sportsmanship especially when frustrated or disappointed)
Keep hands to self
Play appropriately with toys and objects in the room (no throwing)
How we communicate the goals with teachers and buddies
For students in our sensory room, we create bio sheets that we put on the bulletin board or have available in a folder for quick access. For students with buddies, we have the same information printed out and in a lanyard that is kept in the buddy bag for quick reference.
The bio sheets/lanyards include:
Name: (include picture on bio sheets)
Parents’ names:
Parent contact info:
Allergies/medical issues:
Likes:
Dislikes:
Spiritual Goals:
Additional Info:
Student’s Schedule:
Here’s what the bio sheet looked like for my son James when he was younger:
James Peoples (with his picture so new volunteers can get to know him quickly)
Parents: Pastor Lee & Sandra
Contact info: (my phone number here)
Allergies/medical issues: None
Likes: tickles, puzzles, swinging, trains, music, snack time
Dislikes: waiting, loud noises, coloring/writing
Spiritual Goals: for James to hear that Jesus loves him, repeat a Bible memory verse each week, pray with prompting, identify by name friends and helpers at church, and learn the words and motions to the songs we sing
Additional Info: goes to the bathroom independently
James’s Schedule: in the sensory classrooms both hours
Examples from our students
Here are examples from students we serve. I included their goals and some of the modifications we make to help them meet those goals! (I changed the names and some of the identifying details for privacy!)
Nathan (8 yo) has autism level 1 and sensory processing disorder. His goals include participating in discussion with respect, completing activity sheet with assistance, sharing a prayer request when it’s his turn, telling his buddy/parents one thing he learned. Nathan has made a profession of faith & been baptized, so he remembers the Holy Spirit is always helping him. He has a buddy who uses a buddy bag with fidgets, a visual schedule, and he can ask that buddy to take a walk with him when he needs a break in the sensory room.
Brittani (5 yo) has CP. She is nonverbal and uses a wheelchair for mobility. She will hear that Jesus loves her, participate in music time, look at books and pictures that go along with the Bible story and identify people in the stories by pointing (with assistance), put together puzzles that go along with the Bible story (with assistance). Brittani is in our self-contained class and joins the typical class for song time or other activities she enjoys. Her peers know they can talk to her and encourage her, but they are careful not to be too active around her and bump her chair (she is often sleepy and easily startled).
Dave (16 yo) has dyslexia and social anxiety/embarrassment. Dave is in the typical class in the youth group. He isn’t called on to read out loud. His teachers look out for times he’s reluctant to join group activities and either help him enter a group or ask him to help them with a task. (When he was younger, his goals included completing a modified activity sheet: examples- he has a word bank when filling in blanks or he shares answers verbally instead of writing them out)
All of this info helps so much when we’re supporting the kids in our ministry.
I’m excited about reviewing what we’ve been using for our kids recently and updating their ISPs based on how they’ve grown and matured. It will set us up for a smooth transition into the new school year!
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode! There’s lots of links in the shownotes at keyministry.org/podcast if you want to check them out! And if you’d like to talk more about how to support the students in your ministry or grow your ministry to include even more kids, we’d love to book a free consultation with you! Visit keyministry.org/contact to fill out the form, and we’ll follow up with help! Thanks again for listening! We’re praying for you and the families you serve this summer!
