Inclusion through listening and action - By Claire Moll Namas

On a Sunday morning in July, when we didn’t have any children’s provisions on, I went to the back room with my three-year-old to pick out a few toys to play with during the service. I walked into a room occupied by 4 known neurodivergent children, each sitting quietly on a personal device. The children seemed settled, but I was shocked by encountering their “hidden” world and questioned if they were safe and included in our church life.

Having just started my stint as a member of St. Frideswide’s Core Team (the group of people intentionally noticing and listening to the community at Water Eaton Church Centre), I used the tools of community organizing to address my concerns. I spoke to the parents of the young people first, asking if they shared any concern about their safety and inclusion. The parents politely responded that perhaps a bit more effort could be made, but knew that there are always limitations.

There are limitations in the world as it is, but as Christians, we are called to challenge injustice and work to create the world as it should be, a task that the tools of community organising equip us to attempt.

So I took this issue to the Core Team, where one other person who has some involvement with children’s work at Water Eaton Church Centre agreed to do a round of listening one-to-one conversations (121) across the life of the centre. We carried out 10+ 121s with people that we knew in our community that were either directly affected by this issue (the parents) or had expert experience in working with neurodivergent young people (teachers and other practitioners). One person devised a tool that we used to listen to some of the children about their experience in church.

After two months of 121s, we brought the interested people (12 in total!) together in a house meeting to decide the ways in which we were going to act. We spoke about 4 different categories that had come up in the 121s: Safeguarding, Church Culture, Training, and Engagement/Action.

We wanted to make sure that the neurodiverse children stayed at the heart of the conversation and decision-making process. One of our children was bold in answering a set of questions that we gave them ahead of time. We learned many things from them, but the one thing that we thought could be actioned soon was that visual cues could help them know what is going on in the service and, most importantly, how much longer they needed to wait for it to end!

We created a list of tasks that we wanted to do in the next three months. The safeguarding concerns could not wait, so with immediate effect, one of the church wardens watches the front door and spots when children might leave the main service area, which has been a huge help to parents and the children’s ministry team. There is now a clearer rota for who is overseeing the children’s corner on a Sunday, as well as clear signposting for parents that they are still responsible for their children during the service.

We also have the fidget toys and ear defenders more prominently displayed. We are working on creating a visual order of service so that everyone can see how far along in the service we are.

This is what real, collective change looks like!

The team of dedicated adults, along with the neurodiverse young people, will meet again in the coming month to reassess and prioritize the next steps. These steps may seem small, but they add up to creating a safer, more inclusive church reflecting the world as it should be.