Otley Parish Church Youth
Information for Parents and Carers
Firstly, thanks for letting your young person come to our youth group! We currently run a fortnightly Friday evening group (19.00-20.30 in the Parish Room), a Sunday morning group during the service (2nd and 4th Sundays in the month) and a monthly Sunday evening discipleship group (18.00-20.00 in the Youth Vestry).
Contacts:
Email: youth@otleyparishchurch.org
Leadership Team: Katie Mayers, Abi Pitchford, Geoff Park
Emergency contact: Katie Mayers 07743 500093 katiejmayers@gmail.com
Safeguarding and safety information:
We wanted to reassure you that all our volunteers are DBS checked and have been through our church’s “Safer Recruitment” process. In addition, many of us are from a health/education/social care background so have extended clearance for work. We have active risk assessments in place and if you wish to ask about any of these, please speak to the leadership team.
We have a robust reporting system for concerns and are supported by the Parish Safeguarding Officer, Jenny Liston. If you have any concerns that you wish to raise about youth group, please speak to one of the leadership team or, if you’d rather speak to Jenny directly, you can contact her at: jenny@greenroyd.org
Information about young people:
We are keeping a weekly register of which children attend for safeguarding purposes. We also ask for some information about your child at registration which ensures we can keep them safe including food allergies and medical problems. This information is stored on a secure online folder which only volunteers have access to.
If your child has any specific needs such as autistic spectrum disorder diagnoses or if there is anything going on for them at school or home that you think it would be helpful for us to know about, please speak to Katie, Abi or Geoff. Alternatively you can email us at: youth@otleyparishchurch.org
Parent/guardian contact information:
It is really important for us to have relevant contact details (phone and email) for at least 1 parent/guardian for each child. This is so we can contact you in an emergency but also so we can communicate with you about dates, special events and cancellations. If your child comes to youth group by themselves, we will ask them for your contact number and get in touch with you to complete details.
Spiritual content:
OPC Youth is a church youth group and, as such, part of every session will include discussion around faith and what it means to us. Our Sunday groups are more specifically based around discussing faith and we will spend time looking at the Bible as part of this.
Otley Parish Church has the motto “A place for everyone, with Christ at the centre” - and we as the youth team fully endorse this. Your child is welcome at group regardless of their faith, gender, race or sexual identity and we hope they will come to see OPC Youth as a safe space where they can develop long lasting friendships as they go through the ups and downs of life. We hope that at OPC Youth they will come to know that they are loved and cherished just as they are. Please speak to the leadership team for any queries.