Lunch Club Resources

Supporting teen moms by hosting a lunch club in their school is a great way to meet tangible needs, serve the school, show love, and build relationships - all at the same time. But what should you teach during that time? If you're hosting lunch club every week of the school year, you need what feels like an endless supply of material! Well don't despair... we've collected an almost endless supply of fantastic suggestions for you!

Got another great tip or suggestion? Comment below so we can share in the wealth!

 

• Discipline from Birth to Three - This parenting book was specifically written for teen moms, with easy-to-read chapters, plenty of pictures, lots of quotes from teenage moms, and helpful tips for parenting, living with multiple generations, making your home safe, and encouraging curiosity. 

• Dreams to Reality: Help for Young Moms - Start fresh without starting over! By rethinking options for money management, relationship issues, and funding higher education, young mothers can learn to integrate their new families into their plans for themselves. Study guide also available.

• HELP! I'm Moving Out on My Own - This "How-To" guide will help prepare teens for essential life skills like developing healthy relationships, opening a bank account, taking care of their car, interviewing for a job, and much more.

• Partnering with Teen Parents by Parents as Teachers - Extensive downloadable curriculum that includes more than 1,100 pages of resources for you, teen parent handouts, and activity pages specifically geared for young parents. Topics focus on development of life skills, parallel development needs of teens and their infants/young children, the important role of the father. The only downside of this is the price tag - $315. It's digital, though, so you can go in on this with a other areas in your region and share the material. 

• We Teach FACS has free printable worksheets, lesson plans, and activities. Topics range widely, and include everything from Child Development and Newborn Care to Reading and Independence. 

• Youth for Christ Parent Life Curriculum - Youth for Christ has produced several sets of downloadable lessons for teen parents. They are available for free on their website. Search for Lean in, Going Viral, Road Trip, Mom Manual, or Green Means Grow, or just search by Category within Parent Life. Although they are clearly written from a Christian standpoint, many lessons can easily be adapted for a school audience.

Volunteermatch.org

Need mentors or childcare volunteers? If you live near a metropolitan area, www.volunteermatch.org might be able to help! Check this out:

"I recently posted an ad on VolunteerMatch.Org asking for help, and received eight inquiries right away! Of course you always have to be careful finding help on the internet, so make sure to set up an interview in person. I usually only respond once to their inquiry and pray that it actually goes somewhere. I also asked a woman if she was a Christian before meeting with her. She wasn't offended at all and actually was happy that it was a concern of mine! 

Our post said this:  We are looking for Christian women who have a desire to see pregnant and parenting women in their teens meet Jesus. This ministry is just getting started, so we need lots of helpers! We will need mentors, childcare workers, food help, baby donations, committee, prayer partners, and financial support! If interested, please respond so we can set up a meeting to get to know you! 

Now we have three new mentors because of an ad that I posted and it only took five minutes to sign-up!”

-Erin Kennedy, YoungLives Coordinator

Note: You will need our Young Life 501-C3 number (available on Staff Resources) in order to qualify for free postings.

How to Befriend Churches (Including a Sample Downloadable Letter!)

Churches are arguably one of YoungLives' most powerful allies. Aside from the fact that they can often easily host club (since they have nursery space, a kitchen AND club space) and that they often become some of our most consistent and long-lasting donors - churches also hold the power to hook us up with potential volunteers and mentors. And on top of all those good things, we need great churches to come alongside our teens as they enter adulthood. We need churches to be a safe place where single 20-something moms can find a home for friendship, discipleship, and support long after they have outgrown YoungLives.

But how do we initiate connections with pastors and ministry leaders who are swamped with lots of other good things? Here are a few quick ideas to get you started!

1. Download this sample letter to churches to use as a first step in introducing YoungLives in your community or as part of your volunteer recruiting strategy. Send it along with a brochure or flyer with pictures of the teen moms in your area. 
2. Don't stop with a letter! That's just step number one, remember? Follow up with a phone call, a personal visit by their office with some Young Life swag as a gift, or some other personal gesture. 
3. Find out who your friends know! Knowing someone in the church who can introduce you to the pastor - or even knowing a friend of a friend who goes to that church - can get you on the fast-track to an introduction. 
4. Join a small group or Bible study hosted by the church, or check the church calendar for other events coming up that you could attend or even volunteer for. In other words - get on their turf. 

Just like with teens, churches won't care how much you know until they see how much you care. It's all about earning the right to be heard, building bridges and forming relationships. Shall I go on? I'll stop. But in all truth, contact work with churches shouldn't look any different from contact work with teens. It's in our Young Life DNA for a reason - let's use it to our full advantage!

Beyond YoungLives: How to Disciple & Transition Older Moms

What do you do with girls who are getting too old for YoungLives, or who are ready for the “next step” in their discipleship?

Below is a list of ideas that YoungLives areas have used to help older girls to find their place as leaders and role models, and also to facilitate healthy closure for older moms – creating space for mentors to move on to younger moms.

Campaigners - After girls officially graduate from YoungLives, they don’t come to Club any more - but they can still be invited to come to Campaigners for a year or so. Another option is to start a separate Campaigners group for the older girls, either with mentors who want to stay with their older girls or mentors who are ready to be involved in something different. 

Church - Emphasize how important it is for girls for to be connected in a church, and help them to find a church home where they feel comfortable and welcomed. Look for churches that have good childcare, small groups, culturally relevant services, access to bus lines, Saturday night or late Sunday morning services, etc. Find a small group that is willing to “adopt” a couple of older girls, and help them to get plugged in. Encourage girls to get involved in church activities besides just Sunday morning. Once one or two teen moms find a church where they feel at home, this can help to create a culture of church attendance in your YoungLives group – where teen moms start inviting their friends to church. This is even more effective than mentors inviting girls to church!

Graduation - Create a graduation plan with specific steps - goal-setting, junior leader training, and life skills classes. Encourage attendance, good behavior and meeting with their mentors through incentives like gift cards, camp scholarships and levels of achievement at graduation.

Here are a couple of examples:

• Goals and Incentives
• Matriculation Plan

Then hold a graduation celebration as a part of club at the end of each semester or school year to honor those young moms who have reached a certain age or milestone. Girls should be told about the graduation plan when they enter YoungLives. Their graduation date should also be a regular conversation with their mentor. Mentors can stay involved with graduated girls, but they are no longer officially their mentors. 

Junior Mentors - Create a model for girls to become junior mentors. Train them to take on more responsibility once they graduate. For instance, they can be responsible for finding their own childcare and/or transportation, partner with their mentor to mentor a new girl together, take on responsibilities as club helpers (program, sound, setup/teardown), help with transportation, lead Campaigners lessons, do contact work with you, etc.

Senior Group - Create a small group just for your senior/alumni girls, or suggest that one of your graduated girls organize and lead it. They can have their own Campaigners, go to church together, plan play dates together, watch one another’s children, and so on.

Support Network - Look for classes/groups for single parents, programs for mothers, Bible studies, and support groups at churches and pregnancy centers that the girls can join after they graduate. Or if they are married, help them to find a married couple’s Bible study to join with their husband.

Work Crew - Taking a few girls to a weekend camp to do work crew is a fantastic way for them to learn how to give back and for you to be able to pour into them for a few days straight - with no kids, friends, or family around to distract them! 

A few things to expect:

• Lots and lots of laughter and bonding.
• Watching them work really hard!
• Having cabin time and debriefing about the experience.
• Getting to share with them in the joy of service.
• Lots of great side conversations throughout the weekend.
• Listening to them snore for the entire ride home.

To volunteer for a work crew weekend, contact your Regional Director or your YoungLives Divisional Coordinator about opportunities near you.

YoungLives Resource Guide

Looking for the best of the best in books and websites that address teenage pregnancy, mentoring, poverty, multi-ethnic ministry, discipleship, and other topics related to ministry with teen moms? Look no further!! We have curated a 6-page list jam-packed with resources, sorted by topic, just for you.  Check it out here. 

Survey Says: Infographics from The National Campaign

The National Campaign has done loads of research about teens, sex, and teen pregnancy. Right now, there are quite a few downloadable infographics full of interesting stats. (How faith affects teen pregnancy rates, for example.) While not all might apply to your work in YoungLives, there is some interesting studies and results! You might find this helpful in raising community awareness and training volunteers. 

Remember, this isn't YoungLives specific material. Use what you think might be helpful. Have questions? Contact your Regional or Divisional Coordinator for more guidance. The YL Service Center has some great materials that ARE YoungLives specific. You can order them through the staff site. (Make sure to check out the YLVS Case Statement. This is a great resource and tool for approaching potential donors and volunteers!)

Summer Childcare Opportunity

Each summer we need hundreds of volunteers to help make YoungLives camps happen across the country. We've created this short video to help you recruit these amazing people. Here are some ideas... show it to Young Life leaders, committee folks, small groups, churches, share on Facebook, Twitter and your own blog/website if you have one. Let's spread the word!

As always, more details about this ministry opportunity can be found on younglife.org.

How Do You Give Out "Stuff" to Teen Moms Without Causing Chaos?

I am really excited about our new donation procedure. In the past our area would have this awesome club and then end the night with girls rushing to get out the door for donations and some would grab handfuls while others would walk away with a few items. I felt like the most aggressive gal won.

    

Thanks to Redemption Church West Mesa  we have created a “store”. Each Girl receives a ticket when she checks in at the door and then if they bring a new mom they receive an additional ticket. As they exit club they receive one more additional ticket and a number(tickets are also handed out during club for game winners, new girls, or if we are loving their participation). The number indicates what order they will enter the store. I love this because no matter how aggressive you are the procedure is the same: you pick a number and spend your tickets J Each ticket holds a value of  5 points. IF we have lots of donations that night (that we do not want to load back into our vehicles) we are very generous.

      

I love that we are showing value to the behavior we hope to see in our moms. If a girl is loud, fun, or stands next to a new person and is sweet, we hand out tickets. Our area started doing club first, then dinner and so they can receive tickets for answering the questions that the speaker leaves them with. Each mentor carries them in their pocket and has freedom to hand out at the table. Clothes are 1 point each, Diapers are 2 – 5 points depending on size,  wipes are 2 points, food varies. 

-Submitted by Lisa Malmin, YoungLives Coordinator in Arizona

                                    

Sample Info Sheet for Volunteers

In our area we are always having people ask how can they get involved. A good problem to have! We give them the YoungLives adult brochure and have created this document below to give them some more area specific information. They want details on how to plan to provide a meal, or how long will they need to be there for childcare. We also sent it out to our overall Young Life committee so they know our needs and can help connect us to people. View a larger version here. 

Who do you call? 2-1-1

Many (if not ALL!) of our teen moms find themselves at one point or another in need of help with food, housing, employment, health care, counseling, etc. 


2-1-1 provides free and confidential information and referral in many communities in the U.S. When you dial 2-1-1 on your phone you will be directed to a hotline operator who will help you (or your teenage friend) to these resources.


You can visit the national page here at: http://www.211.org/ to see if there is a 2-1-1 hotline available in your area. 


This would be good to share at one of your ongoing mentor trainings. Let mentors know that when they receive a crisis call, they have somewhere to turn. 

This is also a helpful resource for start-up YoungLives ministries looking to partner with other organizations in the community. Just call or search online for organizations that are working with crisis pregnancy or teenage parenting. 

Sample YoungLives PowerPoint Template

Here's a great template for YLVS Presentations, created by Lisa Brown, area director in Tallahasse FL. Thanks for sharing Lisa! You can download the ppt template here.

Once it opens, you can download it by clicking on the 'actions' link at the bottom left of the page and then selecting the option to download as a powerpoint document. You do have to have Microsoft Powerpoint to edit the document.