Letters to Parents

Dear Parent/Carer,

Growing Leaders – Youth Edition

Pilot Course

Growing Leaders is a leadership development course for adults which has been running successfully for two years now in many churches across the . It is produced by CPAS, a provider of leadership training for local churches within the (see their website www.cpas.org.uk/growing.  They are currently in the process of creating a similar resource for growing teenagers in leadership.

We have been invited by CPAS to be one of twelve churches to pilot the material so that when it is published in January 2009 they can be confident that it works well with young people in a whole number of different situations.  The aim of the course is not simply to develop young people as leaders within the church setting, but to equip them for all the different leadership situations they may find themselves in – at school, in the community and in church.

We would love for many of our youth to be part of this pilot course because they are within the suggested age range and demonstrated such maturity during our recent Youth Alpha course.

The course runs for nine months, meeting once a month as a group and with each participant meeting once a month with a mentor. Outside of the course there is very little extra work required – apart from normal involvement in church and any leadership roles they already play. We recognise that school work is the priority and in no way want to interfere with this.

The course will be led by Revd Mina Smallman, Jane Altman and Matthew Banger and we’ll meet at Church House starting in March.

We’ve enclosed an outline of the course so that you can see the content that we’ll be exploring together. Please do contact me on O20 8954 0455 if you would like any further information or simply to chat this through.

With much love,

Revd Mina Smallman