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.

Storyropes

As mentors and volunteers who are intimately connected to teen moms, we get a front-row seat to see what God is doing in their lives. But we also come face-to-face with deep pain, despair, abuse, and darkness. It's not always easy to know what to say or how to validate teens in the midst of their past and present pain.

Enter the Storyrope. Creator Marge Malwitz says, "It is a tactile timeline of one's life or part of one's life." By giving teen moms permission to share their stories and making their life into a work of art, we extend worth and value to them and their stories - and also give them a safe outlet for sharing and beginning to heal from the sad or tragic pieces of their lives.

Storyropes have been used in places like Cambodia and Rwanda with women who have lived through tragic losses. To make a Storyrope, participants tie short strips of fabric representing events, people, and feelings onto a longer piece of fabric that represents their life. Participants have the opportunity to share their Storyrope with someone safe who prays over them and for them as they share.

When the Storyropes are completed and shared, each rope is tied onto one long gold rope representing God's story, symbolizing the greater picture that we are each a part of. 

For pictures, more description, and a short video illustrating the process, visit the Creative Call website.

What a great project for a Campaigners series or a weekend retreat!

Thank you, Sharon Kurtzman and Lisa Hassing-Dyk for sharing this idea! 

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!)

Conference Call on Poverty Training

Shauna Edwards facilitated an insightful poverty training conference call!  It is recorded here. If you need the handout that goes with it, email Emilie or Shauna!

Offering Care With a Difference

Inter-generational ministry can be messy. So can multi-cultural ministry. Throw in different socio-economic backgrounds, and you've got some serious issues with competing value systems! So how do we move past our own cultural viewpoints and offer neutral, objective care to the girls we minister to? The attached powerpoint presentation "Care With a Difference" comes from a seminar at the Eastern Divisional YoungLives Training and gives some very practical suggestions for listening, asking the right questions, and caring well for our YoungLives girls.

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. 

Mending the Soul

Have girls with abuse in their past? We all do! Have you ever wanted and needed a great way to work through some of that with them? Mending the Soul was uniquely written with the "un-churched" kids in mind. This book is very helpful in navigating some of the really hard stuff that we don't always know how to deal with!