Their Need and Our Skills
Two of the key things to know when seeking to serve a school are your own skills and the needs of the school. How else can you truly serve if you don’t know what they require? And how can you possibly deliver if you don’t know what you can offer them?
Paul Beautyman works as a youth worker in Argyll and is involved with local schools through a variety of activities. Some of these are specific clubs that seek to go deeper with the Christian faith, but others are simple jobs required in the school, like being on duty in the dining hall once a week or running the basketball club. Paul emphasises that these opportunities didn’t all happen at once and were grown over time through trust with the school. He reflects that it was only after “showing a willingness to serve the school in a way that benefitted them” that meaningful relationships started to form. It’s all about trust, and showing that willingness to be there, especially when it involves less exciting jobs.
Another way to build trust is by delivering on what you say you will do. School work can be weakened by lack of commitment, so bringing your ideas and your skills - and actually being willing to put them in place - is so important in showing you care and are invested in the school community. As this is what serving a local school is all about: investing in the community of young people there; and investing in a way that builds them up and equips them for life. So if you have an idea for a lunchtime group, or supporting a sports team or facilitating support for students, then voice the idea, and further yet, action it! With Paul’s work, he was very deliberate to use the skills and experience he had gained from previous youth work roles, utilising this past experience and coming to them with an offering of, “here’s what I can bring”.
Paul recounts that it is always better to “under-promise and over-deliver”, as that leaves space for you to give more. Give more back to the students, back to the teachers, and back to the community. This can be seen in the way we partner with young people when serving the school. There have been occasions in Paul’s involvement when the young people in contact with him have gone from being regulars on the detention list, to receiving awards at prize giving months later! This change was significant both for the students, who were once more awkward and isolated members of the school, and for the staff, as seeing this change can remind them that students are always worth investing in. Being there for the long haul with those students, especially the ones who fit in less, is important. As that’s what investing is - committing to the process of presence and consistently being there.
