Children, Youth & Families

Since 2015, we have put an enormous amount of energy into our children, youth & families ministry. We have employed full-time Childrens & Families Worker, full-time Youth Workers, part-time workers – all ably supporting our amazing teams of volunteers. We have run youth clubs, Bible Studies, family services. We have become well-integrated into Primary and Secondary Schools. We have provided for Special Needs children, run a Wine Club for parents of children with Special Needs, provided pastoral support for parents and provided 1-2-1 mentoring and support for children and young people.

But we need to be honest! The Covid pandemic decimated the Children, Youth & Families Work here at St. Andrew’s! 2022-25 will be a time for rebuilding – but it is going to be a long haul… Please bear with us as we rebuild – and know that children, young people and families are very important to us at St. Andrew’s.

Anyway, this page should give you a flavour of the type of things that are currently going on. More will develop over the next few months, we hope…

CONTACTS

Children & Family Worker

Kate Ladd

kateladd1@gmail.com

General queries

Rev Dr Steve Griffiths

steve.griffiths@london.anglican.org

Youth Work after Covid

We know that the Covid-19 pandemic has changed everything. That is not least the case with our youth work here at St. Andrew’s. The reality is that so much of what we did before the pandemic has stopped – and we are not yet able to know what will be restarted again or what will need to grow in its place.

We are confident that the youth work at St. Andrew’s will grow again. But we are thinking and praying through what shape that is going to take…

Rebuilding the Team…

Kate Ladd is our Children & Families Worker. She is here to support and encourage children and families in all aspects of their life and faith. You can email Kate on kateladd1@gmail.com

We have a great team of volunteers for our TFG (Time for God) family services, under the very able leadership of Andrea Ali. Details of the service are below.

We are hoping to rebuild more teams in the coming months.

 Children’s Ministry at church on a Sunday:

Children’s Corner

There is a Children’s Corner at the back of church which has soft toys and books to keep children occupied during the service if they want to go there.

N.B. Under Covid regulations, we are unable to opening this area at the current time.

Children @ Communion

All children are welcome to receive the bread and the wine at Holy Communion. We will, of course, be guided by parents and carers in this regard. Some are happy for their child to receive bread only. Others are happy for their child to receive the wine too. Others prefer their child to receive a blessing instead. Whatever you are comfortable with is fine by us!

TFG

Our Family Service is called TFG (Time for God).

This happens in the church building on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of each month (during term time) at 4.00pm, and lasts about 50mins. About 30=40 families attend this service.

The style of the service is very much in the vein of Messy Church, which we had monthly at St. Andrew’s pre-Covid.

TFG is designed to be a relaxed and informal service for families, paticularly with toddlers and Primary School-aged kids. It is based around various creative arts activities, songs and other child-friendly activities.

There is lots of movement (the children do not sit down for the whole service, but work round the various ‘activity stations’ around the church), so hopefully no-one gets bored!

After the service is finished, there is some food for the children and adults to enjoy together.

It is a brilliant introduction to church for anyone who is not used to a more formal style of service. Please do join us.

N.B. Please be responsible for your own child at TFG – particularly when it comes to the food afterwards. St. Andrew’s church cannot guarantee that the food will be suitable for your child, particularly if he/she has allergies. It is the responsibility of the parent/carer to ensure that the child only eats what is suitable for them.

Supporting those with Additional Needs:

There is always more to be done in this really important aspect of our ministry – but we are addressing the issues as best we can in a systematic way.

We have an Additional Needs Champion at church. It is their role to advocate for those who have Additional Needs, and to ask ‘the hard questions’ of the church leadership about what we are doing to become an increasingly inclusive church.

A group of volunteers at the church have created some Sensory Books for those with Additional Needs to use during the services. These have proven very popular indeed – and we are currently in the process of thinking about what further sensory resources we can create for those who would benefit from this.

In recent years, we have paid for teenagers to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. They joined a Youth Pilgrimage Trip to that holy site at Easter, and had just the most amazing time! We hope to support others in the future too.

Supporting Families:

At St. Andrew’s, we have a range of activities to support families in the congregation and in the wider community. These include:

Parenting Courses and other Parental Support

We do try to offer as much parental support as possible. This includes: 

  • Parenting Courses
  • One-to-one support for parents and carers
  • Listening support for bereavement, debt, marital problems and other issues

Whatever the issues facing families in our community of Enfield, we want to do what we can to support and help. If the issue is of a more complex nature than we are able to help with, we will work with individuals and families to signpost them to qualified professionals or agencies that can help.

Wine Club

Roughly once a month, there is a Wine Club exclusively for parents of children with Additional Needs.

This is a really fun evening. There is cheese and snacks, and a theme each time for the wine. Marks are given for each wine that people bring – and the winner gets to choose the theme for the next month.

Wine Club is a supportive environment for these parents. They can talk about things at home – or just use the evening to let their hair down and relax. There is no ‘agenda’.

 Other Children and Youth Activities at St. Andrew’s:

Beavers, Cubs and Scouts

All sections are for both Boys & Girls and run during term time.

Beavers for ages 6-8 from 18:00-19:15 on Thursday.
Cubs for ages 8-10 and half from 18:30-20:00 on Wednesday
Scouts for ages 10 and half to 14 19:30-21:30 on Thursday.

To find out more information please contact our Group Scout Leader, John Rognaldson. His e-mail address is gsl@4thEnfield.com