The Youth Worker's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis

by Rich Van Pelt and Jim Hancock

• ISBN13: 9780310263135
• ISBN10: 0310263131
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-08-01
• Publisher: ZONDERVAN

Summary

"There's a kid in your youth ministry who hasn't somehow been affected by crisis. There's not a youth worker on the planer who won't benefit from the principles and practices in this book." -Kara Powell, Ph.D., Executive Director, Center for Youth and Family Ministry at Fuller Seminary Because when it comes to crisis, it's not a matter of if, but when Anyone who stays in youth ministry very long will encounter significant crises. Family break-ups, substance abuse, sexual assault, eating disorders, cutting, suicide, gun violence... But without proper and immediate care, crises like these cause years of emotional pain and spiritual scarring in students. Rich Van Pelt and Jim Hancock want to help you prevent that from happening. Through their experience and expertise, you'll learn how to: - Respond quickly and effectively to crisis - Balance legal, ethical, and spiritual outcomes - Forge preventive partnerships with parents, schools, and students - Bring healing when the damage is done When crises happen-and they will, ready or not-there are practical steps you can take. Van Pelt and Hancock provide field-tested advice and specific, biblically based guidance for each stage of crisis. Keep this book on hand as the go-to resource when you need it most.

Table of Contents

1.0 Life beyond Columbine	9	(23)
1.1 Understanding Crisis	14	(10)
1.2 Dangerous Opportunity	24	(8)
2.0 Intervention	32	(47)
2.1 Triage	33	(14)
2.2 Making Connections	47	(10)
2.3 Deep Listening	57	(12)
2.4 Action Plan	69	(10)
3.0 The Bigger Picture	79	(23)
3.1 Referral	80	(8)
3.2 Legal and Ethical Considerations	88	(14)
4.0 Preventive Partnerships	102	(24)
4.1 Youth Groups	106	(7)
4.2 Parents	113	(6)
4.3 Schools	119	(4)
4.4 Law Enforcement	123	(3)
5.0 When & If: Specific Crises	126	(101)
5.1 Accidents	127	(2)
5.2 Anger	129	(2)
5.3 Bullying	131	(4)
5.4 Cheating	135	(3)
5.5 Cutting and Self-Injurious Behavior	138	(3)
5.6 Death	141	(3)
5.7 Divorce	144	(5)
5.8 Dropping Out	149	(2)
5.9 Eating Disorders	151	(5)
5.10 Hazing	156	(6)
5.11 Incest	162	(5)
5.12 Interventions	167	(6)
5.13 Post Traumatic Stress Disorder	173	(2)
5.14 Pregnancy	175	(3)
5.15 Rape	178	(2)
5.16 Sexual Abuse	180	(9)
5.17 Sexual Identity Confusion	189	(7)
5.18 Sexually Transmitted Diseases	196	(2)
5.19 Substance Abuse and Addiction	198	(10)
5.20 Suicide	208	(10)
5.21 Terror	218	(4)
5.22 Trouble with the Law	222	(5)
6.0 Appendixes	227	(53)
6.1 Plan of Action Outline	228	(2)
6.2 Child Abuse Reporting Numbers	230	(7)
6.3 Emotional Map	237	(4)
6.4 First Aid for an Overdose	241	(2)
6.5 State Sex Offenders Registries	243	(5)
6.6 Where in the World Are You?	248	(5)
6.7 Glossary of Child Protective Services Terms	253	(26)
6.8 Intake Interview Form	279	(1)
7.0 Endnotes	280

Excerpts

The Youth Worker’s Guide to Helping Teenagers in CrisisCopyright © 2005 by Youth SpecialtiesYouth Specialties Products, 300 South Pierce Street, El Cajon, CA 92020 are published byZondervan, 5300 Patterson Avenue Southeast, Grand Rapids, MI 49530.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataVan Pelt, Rich.The youth worker’s guide to helping teenagers in crisis / by Rich Van Pelt andJim Hancock.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references.ISBN 0-310-26313-11. Church work with young adults. 2. Church work with youth. 3. Pastoral counseling.4. Crisis intervention (Mental health services) I. Hancock, Jim, 1952- II. Title.BV4446.V365 2005259’.23--dc222005011502Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible:New International Version (North American Edition), copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 byInternational Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrievalsystem, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy,recording, or any other—(except for brief quotations in printed reviews) without the priorpermission of the publisher.Web site addresses listed in this book were current at the time of publication. Pleasecontact Youth Specialties via e-mail ([e-mail]) to report URLs that areno longer operational and replacement URLs if available.Editorial direction by Will PennerArt direction by Holly SharpEditing by Laura GrossProofreading by Joanne Heim and Heather HaggertyInterior design by SharpSeven DesignCover design by Holly SharpPrinted in the United States of America05 06 07 08 09 10 / DCI / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Rich Van Pelt: You probably don’t live anywhere near Columbine;you may not even know where Columbine is—which isfine. It’s in Littleton, Colorado—not exactly the center of theuniverse, or anything else for that matter—more the southwesternedge of the Denver metro area. But on April 20, 1999—andfor about a month after—Columbine seemed like the center ofthe universe, judging by news coverage. On that day two studentscame to school armed to the teeth and started shootingpeople. They killed 12 students, one teacher, and themselvesin a bloody rampage.Until the felling of the World Trade Center towers in September2001 there was, I suspect, never a more photographedcrime scene. Like the terror on 9/11, the Columbine coveragewas all from the outside—a crisis covered from every angleexcept the one where people were caught struggling betweenlife and death.Jim Hancock: Ask a dozen youth workers about life beyondColumbine and you’ll hear about tipping points, wake-up calls,and rumors of revival; about law enforcement cover-ups, guncontrol, and Michael Moore; about increased school securityand purely cosmetic changes; about freaks, geeks, jocks, andbullies; about a terror notable mainly for its demographics(meaning the shooters and victims were mainly suburban andrelatively affluent).Ask a youth worker on the south side of Chicago who metwith his group on the evening of the massacre. He’d tell youthe adult leaders in his church followed the news from Littletonthroughout the afternoon and arrived early to pray and prepareto deal with the trauma once students started showingup. What was truly shocking, he’d say, was how little emotionthere was of any sort—not anger, not fear, not even compassion.Kids were fooling around like it was just another Tuesday.He could hardly believe it.What emerged from the group as leaders tried to engagethe students in talking about the shootings surprised him evenmore: What’s the big deal? his students wondered. We feelbad for those people and all, but we have shootings in ourcommunity all the time.“I got shot,” a boy said, lifting his shirt to show the scar.“My brother got killed,” a girl said.And one by one the adults learned that every kid in theroom was acquainted with violence and brutal death to adegree none of the leaders knew before that night. That youthworker would say he felt terrible for the Columbine families andhe felt terrible for the children and families in his own churchwhose loss went unrecorded all those years because it was—what? Less concentrated? Less affluent? Browner-skinned?(He wouldn’t include that last question, but I certainly would.)So that’s one version of life beyond Columbine; one whereit would be nice to grieve the loss of strangers if we just had theemotional reserves. But most of us live well beyond Columbine,and, due respect, we have our own crises.Ask a youth worker who actually had kids at Columbine,and you may hear about outsiders swarming Littleton to profi tfrom the misery; about cameras, microphones, and relentlessscrutiny; about quick in-and-out visits from fear-mongeringand fund-raising Christian carpetbaggers who came mainly totalk about themselves.All these years later, the anger and sadness about thosethings are just under the surface for some folks, mixed withimages and memories they can’t quite believe another personwould comprehend: Crouching behind a hardened police vehiclelistening to gunfi re inside the school. Six, seven, eight, nineambulances screaming out of a cul-de-sac, every one bearinginjured students—23 in all. A fi reman hosing blood off the walkwayof a house repurposed as a triage center. Walking aboutin a fog. Burying youth group kids. Working to exhaustion andsickness. Feeling guilty about an ordinary pleasure enjoyed forthe fi rst time since the killing.RVP: Here’s a story you maybe haven’t heard: When all hellbroke loose at the high school—and before, during, and afterthe outsiders came and went—there was a network of youthworkers quietly looking after kids in Littleton and the communitiesthat weave around it: Highlands Ranch. Southglenn.Greenwood Village. Cherry Hills. Englewood. Sheridan. BowMar. Ken Caryl. Columbine.It’s always been a relational thing—this network, formalizedonly to the extent that we gave it a name—The Southwest Connection—just so we’d have something to call it. No Web site. Noagenda. Just relationships with people who understand eachother in the ebb and fl ow of ministry with kids and families.Youth workers in the Southwest Connection come from all overthe theological and ecclesiological map: Baptist, Presbyterian,Episcopal, Bible church, Catholic, independent, nondenominational.They come to know each other as colleagues in ministryto students at a dozen or so high schools and probablytwice that many middle schools. That’s what’s always drawnus together: Our love for kids. And shared space: 80123, giveor take.With physical proximity, theological diversity, shared identityas youth workers, and the nurturing that blossoms whenwe come together, these remarkable people walked each otherthrough the terror; finding each other here and there in thecraziness and taking strength from the horrible, blessed realizationthis was really happening and we were not alone.In the process, we learned that relationships are everythingin a crisis. It wasn’t the public extravaganzas that helped; it wasone person listening to another. It was off-sites with a few students.“I suppose the big public meetings were helpful,” oneof my friends says, meaning most weren’t very helpful at all. “Imean they were well-produced and all, but what really helpedwas contact with people.”His wife takes a softer tone toward the high profi le gatherings:“Some of the big meetings gave groups of four and fi vestudents a place to focus their attention on each other andprocess their experiences together.” Back to relationships.

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Excerpted from The Youth Worker's Guide to Helping Teenagers in Crisis by Rich Van Pelt, Jim Hancock
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