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Employed by the Diocese of London, our team supports anyone engaging children, young people or families within our worshipping communities. We provide direct support and guidance, create online resources and develop partnerships to help churches in their mission to children and young people. We are also responsible for championing the Growing Younger priority in the Diocese of London’s 2030 Vision.
If you are interested in developing children or youth work in your church, have a look around this page, then talk to your vicar or safeguarding lead, or email the children and youth support team at youth@nulllondon.anglican.org or children@nulllondon.anglican.org.
If you have a question, or are looking for something and cannot find it on this page, feel free to email us!
The team has a number of different options for support available:
It is vital that paid workers feel supported in their role and we aim to help churches in a number of ways:
Most things wouldn’t happen in a churches without volunteers. We aim to help churches in a number of ways:
We can support you in recruiting the right person for your community and helping them settle in. Whatever stage you’re at in the process, feel free to contact us.
Things we can help with include:
Email us if you’d like support with any of the above. Be sure to check the Diocese of London’s guidance for in-depth walkthrough of the safe recruitment process for churches.
If your vacancy is already online, you can submit your vacancy to be displayed on the Diocese jobs page. Make sure you’re also aware of our Apprentice Programme, which is a great opportunity to train someone from within your church.
Check the vacancies page, or find out more about our Apprenticeship Scheme below. Some churches in our Diocese do not submit their job vacancies to our jobs page, so keep an eye out on social media.
Our team has a wide range of expertise and skills, which we apply to many projects and scenarios. Several of the team are also assigned as contact points for Episcopal Areas, to help us support and stay up to date at a local level.
Sam Donoghue
Head of Children & Youth Ministry Support
Sarah Agnew
Children & Families Ministry Advisor
Mike Rutt
Youth Ministry Advisor (CONCRETE)
Kathryn Kane
Schools Ministry & RE Advisor
Emma Biddle
Programme Manager, Growing Younger
& Apprentice Coordinator
Levi Phillips
Creative Lead, Growing Younger
Jacob Holme
Administrator, The Spark Fund
Growing Younger is a priority for churches as part of the Diocese of London’s 2030 vision to see every Londoner encounter the love of God in Christ.
We will start to realise this vision when every child within our diocese:
The Children and Youth Ministry Support team is focused on helping churches to prioritise growing younger.
From 30 October to 10 November, a Kensington Area Schools’ Mission ran across six Church of England secondaries in the Area – Bishop … Read more
Sarah from the Children and Youth Support team offers five simple ideas that will help churches connect with families over the Christmas period.
A call to consider stepping beyond volunteering with children or young people…
Three children and youth workers share their experiences of volunteering.
The team work with people from across the Diocese of London and beyond to create relevant, practical resources that directly address the challenges we face as a diocese. Some of these are downloadable materials, some are courses. The goal is to make things that help our worshipping communities create lasting impact.
Feel free to download the resources created so far below and feel free to email us at youth@nulllondon.anglican.org if you have an idea for a resource that every church could use.
We develop and curate practical content and resources on a regular basis and share these with our email subscribers and social media followers. Connect with us on X/Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and subscribe to our emails – then share these links with your church if you want people to be equipped and inspired!
A free online learning community for anyone volunteering or working with children and young people, run by our team.
🎓 Increase your confidence, skills and knowledge in working with children and young people
💬 Learn from and discuss what other churches are doing and what resources they’re using
🎉 Connect with a community of others in similar roles who are keen to grow and celebrate the small wins
Anyone who joins Mighty Leaders will get ongoing access to a growing library of content, guidance, courses and opportunities as this online community develops.
Each year we aim to tackle various hot topics as well as foundational ones with an array of courses, seminars and events. We aim to provide community, encouragement and a platform for exchanging ideas. To receive updates on these, subscribe to our email list. You can watch most of our livestreams over on our Facebook page, including previous sessions.
January-June 2024 | London Diocesan House
A short-term development programme to help people thrive and have a greater impact on the community they serve. We’ll take delegates on a journey over 5 months with coaching, group reflection and self-guided learning. This combination of learning, practice and sharing will build confidence and equip people to thrive whilst working for a church. The next cohort is open to anyone in the Diocese of London who works for a church in a children, youth or family-focused role.
To sign up, email youth@nulllondon.anglican.org.
TBA | Online
We’re reviving our online training aimed at volunteers who often can’t get to things in person. Look out for mid-week evening and weekend sessions in 2024 – they will happen on Zoom or directly inside Mighty Leaders.
Whilst our team’s remit doesn’t involve producing curriculum resources, we spend a lot of time curating and signposting resources we find across the internet, and develop our own when there is a particular focus or objective. Below you’ll find a mix of these – be sure to check out our ‘database’ for a growing library of stuff we approve of!
We are compiling an online database of resources for working with children, youth and families, to save a bit of time on the discovery process! We’ve added a column to flag resources you can use or adapt remotely. Below you can filter and sort the resources we’ve added, and if you think any are missing, submit one here.
This is a small collection of resources to get you started on having informed conversations around the topics of race, diversity, and justice. This is by no means exhaustive, so if you would like to recommend something for those specifically working with children and youth, let us know at youth@nulllondon.anglican.org.
No two people grieve in the same way. In this time where support for children and youth is increasingly important during a loss of loved ones, those who work or volunteer with them should feel confident and knowledgeable on how they can help.
The Diocese of London’s Children and Youth Support ran this online workshop to cover the key areas of supporting people through grief. The session used additional breakout groups throughout to create a more comfortable environment for sharing from experience. These were not recorded but are noted so you can reflect for yourself.
Safeguarding guidance for working online remains the same.
Follow the Diocesan Safeguarding Guidelines and talk to your vicar or safeguarding lead if in any doubt. Any concerns raised in parishes should be brought to the attention of the Church Safeguarding Officer, who can seek advice from the DST. Other areas of the Diocese (e.g. chaplaincies) should contact the DST directly.
For guidance around online video conferencing with young people, see this guide from the Diocese of Worcester.
Safeguarding concerns can be raised by phone or by email.
Various churches have developed online alternatives to their normal children and youth activities, which may be appropriate for people from other churches to join in with. If you are looking for great online activities to point young people to, HTB Youth, Virtual Sunday School and Worship for Everyone have been consistently producing live and recorded content.
If you’re making things specifically for children and/or youth, email us!
