Courses: Narrative of Hope

As summer quickly approaches and our workload in schools begins to wind down, I have been able to reflect on some of the successes we have had across this last academic year. One of these successes is the amount of courses that have been run across all of our schools! These courses have enabled us to meet with small groups of young people and for a short time, enter into their journeys, offering them a narrative of hope. Hope of freedom from something that has been holding them back; hope for their future as they grow in skills and their gifts; hope of something more, as they reflect on their current lives.

The three course I have been a part of leading this academic year are The Leadership Foundations course, The Haven and Tough Stuff.

My highlight from the Leadership course is from running it at Roundwood Park School. The second time we ran the course saw us with a small cohort. This meant that on one of the sessions we joined groups as facilitators and were put in a position to choose hats to represent each person, a few of them who I had not had any conversations with before. However, with God's help, it felt easy to match them with a hat and encourage them specifically about who they have been created to be. Watching them be encouraged in their identity was a huge privilege.

A second victory was seeing even more students, who have attended both Tough Stuff and The Haven courses in schools this year, coming along to a Haven Local group after school. This has enabled us to continue connecting with some of these young people outside of school, in local church buildings, both in Harpenden and St. Albans.

Finally, I wanted to finish by sharing some feedback directly from the students of Sir John Lawes about the impact the courses have had on them:

'I would recommend the course because it's really fun and helps you work on your anxiety and your confidence.'

'I would recommend the course because it helps you to really think what you can do to help yourself. And if you're going through something it can teach you skills to deal with what you're going through.'

Mart :)