Throughout my teenage years, I fondly remember attending a number of young people’s discipleship groups run by dedicated volunteers from the church. They would open up their homes for an evening a week to share part of their lives with a bunch of enthusiastic young people who would gather to explore faith in Jesus, study the bible, pray, and worship.
When I became a church-based Youth Worker more than 20 years ago, as a team we ran various iterations of regular home-based groups for both our younger and older young people and their friends. These were immensely valuable in supporting many of our youth group to meet Jesus for the very first time, and to help them develop more meaningful relationships with God.
This successful vehicle for church-based discipleship of young people was replicated in different forms across many churches in our town, as it has been across the country for decades.
Over the years however, as the drive for higher and even more stringent safeguarding standards has come to the fore, many church youth workers are questioning how best to safeguard the young people in their care with the desire to continue providing home-based groups which have such a proven track record of success. This debate very much came to a head in 2023 when the National Youth Agency (NYA) updated its ‘Youth work in private dwellings’ guidance, which argued that “youth work and youth sector activity delivered in private dwellings is fundamentally unsafe and should not take place.”
This phrase very much spooked those within the Christian youth work sector who follow the work of the NYA, and led many to question whether this style of delivery was now legally allowed. However, the document continues beyond the aforementioned headline-grabbing statement to provide much-needed guidance for safer practice in private dwellings. In response, the UK Christian Youth Work Consortium (UK CYWC) developed and published their helpful guidance ‘Keeping Young People Safe in Private Dwellings’ which provided an excellent guide for Youth Workers looking to ensure that home-based youth work activities could be as safe as possible.
David Howell has recently published Home-grown Youth Work: Keeping Young People Safer in Private Dwellings through Grove Books, as an accessible introduction for anyone keen to explore this topic. David helps co-ordinate the UK Christian Youth Work Consortium, is an ordained Baptist Minister, and has been involved in Christian youth work all his life.
Across six short chapters, David starts by summarising the current context and concerns, before exploring the value of Youth Work in homes and provides a brief theological understanding of the value of the home in Christian ministry. The second half of the booklet introduces many of the fundamental principles of keeping young people safe when working in homes, and sets out ten areas where Churches should implement safeguarding measures to support this work.
This helpful and easy to read booklet is an excellent starting point for any church wanting to ensure it’s doing everything it can to keep young people safe when delivering activities in private dwellings. For those who might find the summary nature of this format leaving them wanting to read more, the longer UKCYWC guide would be an excellent source for additional information.
Not every congregation has its own building where activities for young people can be easily delivered, especially those in house- or micro-churches. Hired spaces can often feel very impersonal and are prohibitively expensive for many.
I wish I’d had this booklet to guide me during my time as a church-based youth worker.