For Quakers of all ages. Quaker Life children and young people's work staff team have developed a range of ideas to equip and encourage Friends to undertake, develop and advocate ways for people of all ages to worship and live out their faith together.

All of the resources that are listed here are free and available for use in a Quaker context with children and young people.

Use the links provided to download the resources. If you would like to ask for paper copies of any of these resources please contact the CYP Administrator cypadmin@quaker.org.uk or 020 7663 1013.

Resources for Quakers of all ages

    Spring into all age worship

    Spring into all age worship free guidance and resource pack is available from Quaker Life children and young people's work staff team. This has simple guidance as to how to go about organising all age worship. It includes four tried and tested plans for all age worship and other ideas for creative activities.

    All are welcome

    Advices and queries for Friends who have responsibility for eldership and oversight in order to grow an all-age community.

    This resource from Quaker Life and Woodbrooke is available to order by contacting cypadmin@quaker.org.uk or can be downloaded here: www.quaker.org.uk/documents/all-are-welcomefinal.

    Quaker Youth Development Work makes a difference

    The developing local Quaker youth work pilot project ran in the west of England (Wiltshire, Somerset and Bristol) and in Yorkshire from 2018-2021. It tested how employing a youth worker could make a difference in the ability and capacity of Quaker communities to make links with young people, strengthen the young Quaker community and develop inclusive all-age Quaker communities.

    Stories and insights from young people and youth workers – alongside the evaluation report and case studies – show the impact and learning of the project. They explain how your area meeting can work with Quakers in Britain to fund and host a youth worker.

    Engaging with Schools - Outreach with children and young people

    This resource has been created to support Friends and Quaker meetings working with schools and other groups of children and young people visiting the meeting house. It also contains ideas for talks, discussions and sessions for anyone visiting a school or other group.

    Download Engaging with Schools (PDF)

    Godly Play

    Storytelling as a theological reflection

    We have been offering workshops for Friends interested in storytelling in 2007. We use the Godly Play method and scripts and there are now many Friends who have introduced storytelling to their meeting. Often working with the children and young people or using stories as a contribution to all age worship.

    Visit the workshops that you can request pages of the website to find out how you can request a Godly Play workshop in your meeting.

    We have built up a number of storytelling sets of equipment these are available on loan. All these are beautifully made by St Michael's workshop in Norwich and come as complete sets ready to use, together a loan copy of the appropriate Godly Play story book.

    These resources may be borrowed by people in meetings who have attended a Storytelling as theological reflection training day delivered by the children and young people's training team or Godly Play training delivered in another church or faith setting.

    The following stories are available to borrow:

    • Creation: this story seeks to trace the ever elusive presence of the mystery of God and what can we know of the giver by the gift?
    • Exile and Return: tells the journey of the Israelites through the desert and how they discovered that God's presence is everywhere, waiting, to be found, to find us. (You will need to supply sand and a bag or cloth to lay this story out on yourself).
    • Fire from the sky: a story that moves from the first use of a nuclear bomb through early resistance to nuclear weapons and on to the Trident 3 activists.
    • The Flood: Tells the story of God's promise to Noah.
    • Good Samaritan: Focuses on the Samaritan and the wounded traveller and wonders about who is our neighbour.
    • Jesus and the Children: Jesus reproves the disciples as they try stop children from coming to him.
    • Jesus with his parents at the temple: Mary and Joseph lose Jesus at the temple.
    • John Woolman: tells the story of John Woolman's journey across the Atlantic Ocean to visit Friends in England to tell them that it is wrong to trade in goods made by slaves.
    • Lent: is a story that is designed to be told over the 7 weeks of Lent. It can, if practiced, be told in a shorter time.
    • Parable of the Good Shepherd: the story Jesus told of the shepherd who searches for the one sheep that is lost and leaves the ninety-nine to do so.
    • Parable of the Mustard Seed: helps explore what Jesus was trying to explain about 'the Kingdom of Heaven' on earth.
    • Parable of the Sower: a way to explore what happens when the Sower casts the seed.
    • Zaccheus: the story of how Jesus saw the good in Zaccheus the tax collector and how this encounter changed him from someone who lied and cheated, to a man who was truly sorry and sought to mend his ways.

    Borrowing a Storytelling Set

    Friends who have experience of the storytelling method can borrow a set to use at their meeting.

    How to borrow

    Allow at least one month to complete the loan arrangements and for your storytelling set to arrive.

    Contact the CYP Administrator cypadmin@quaker.org.uk or 020 7663 1013 with the following information:

    1. who is borrowing and your address, phone number and email address
    2. the date you plan to use the storytelling equipment
    3. which story you plan to tell
    4. which Quaker meeting you will be working with
    5. please tell us which Storytelling as theological reflection or Godly Play training you have attended.

    We will send you a loan agreement that explains how the service works. Once you send back a signed copy of the agreement, we will parcel up the set you want and post it to you. We ask you to cover the cost of its safe return by the agreed date. We provide a return address label and a set card so that you can check all the contents are safely returned. We ask borrowers to use Royal Mail's special delivery service to return the set to Quaker Life and we include information on how to do this.

    Journeys in the Spirit

    Each month the children's work edition includes an all age worship outline. To find out what is available visit the Journeys in the Spirit catalogue pages of the website. Select series 5 and beyond.

    Journeys – Special issues

    Journeys in the Spirit special issues: children & youth are published occasionally.They offer information, resources and activities on topical themes or particular areas of interest. Special issues may be for use by a whole Meeting, whatever the ages, or for work with a particular age group.

    The special issues currently available are:

    World War I centenary

    Children's work special edition – 'White feather stories – conscience, courage and cowardice'

    This special issue of Journeys in the Spirit children's work edition offers ways to introduce to children the topic of WWI and explore dilemmas faced by Quakers, and others, opposed to the war at the time. It offers activities to help children think about notions of conscience, courage and cowardice, and explore the qualities of a peacemaker.

    White feather stories – conscience, courage and cowardice

    Worship Journeys

    Getting into worship – practice for all ages

    This special issue offers ways to help children explore becoming physically and mentally still in order to deepen and enrich their experience of meeting for worship. It has been produced to coincide with Quaker Week 2013.

    Connecting as a community

    Connecting as a Community is a special edition of Journeys in the Spirit that can be used to facilitate activities that link your meeting's provision for young people aged 12 to 18 with the wider meeting. This material is written so that it may also be used as a set of activities to develop community in meetings.

    Friends who want to develop the life of their community could find the Ways to Connect set of cards helpful.

    New expressions of Quakerism

    This resource pack offers a three session outline to use with all ages for meetings that wish to experiment with new and radical ways to connect with each other, our community and the wide world.

    The resource is available as part of Being Friends Together. For a hard copy or for more information contact: the Quaker bookshop quakercentre@quaker.org.uk or call 020 7663 1030.

    Creating a leaflet for children's meeting

    Here we offer ways to think about, design and produce a leaflet to give to families, parents and carers when they first arrive at your Local Meeting.

    We have provided examples of leaflets produced by a variety of Local Meetings in a variety of formats and content: Read these through and think about what you might need a leaflet to include. It should reflect what happens in your meeting, what is offered and what is promised.

    Some detailed guidance

    • What should it look like? Friendly, colourful and simple. Include a picture of the meeting house and children's meeting if possible. Easy for children to hold.
    • What to include? A simple outline of what happens in your children's meeting – what is done, who are the helpers or leaders and how people behave and look after each other. You might include a picture of an activity. Include some detail about what a child might expect to do at different times of a session.
    • Reassurance for parents and carers about things that might initially worry them about their child or children being in a Quaker meeting. This could include something about children or babies burbling, crying, whispering, moving between parents, picking up a book and so on.
    • Discuss and include something about your meetings view of when parents should stay in children's meeting or when children should be left so that parents and carers can go to their meeting for worship.
    • Discuss and include something about when children come into and leave the main meeting.
    • Include a very brief out line of your safeguarding policy and who is responsible.

    We also have several other resources to help you in your thinking, preparation and planning for children's meeting:

    Resources and support for children and young people's work

    The children and young people's work staff team in Quaker Life produces a catalogue of ideas, activities and resources. It is available to meeting and gives details of:

    • the free resources that are available
    • the training that can be accessed by individuals or meetings
    • the support that exists for those doing work with children and young people, and
    • the range of events that take place for children and young people.

    We hope that this is helpful to you.

    For a paper copy of this booklet, contact the CYP Administrator cypadmin@quaker.org.uk or 020 7663 1013.

    Download: Resources and support for children and young people's work pdf

    Contact us

    CYP Administrator
    020 7663 1013
    cypadmin@quaker.org.uk