THANK YOU!
A massive thank you to everyone who signed the SaveMethodistYouthWork petition! The proposed cuts were rejected, and the Church has committed to a significant level of funding for the future of work with children and young people in the Methodist Church.
The following statement was read out by the Revd Jonathan Kerry at Methodist Conference 2007 in Blackpool:

“Conference members have expressed concerns about the intended level of staffing within the reconfigured team to support work with children and young people. This concern is reflected in several of the Memorials presented to the Conference and has been the subject of debate in the media and of a petition. It was also reflected in discussion within the Methodist Council. Paragraph 8.7 of the report Enabling Work with Under-19s, would, if the report is adopted, require the Council to ensure that the staffing levels are appropriate for the work to be undertaken. What might this mean in practice from September 2008? The Council is recommending that a major project be initiated as soon as possible to develop, with enhanced energy, initiatives to reach those who are completely outside any Christian community. This project will be staffed by a qualified, experienced full time officer. Its outcomes may be of various kinds, but they might well include recommendations about future connexional team staffing. Therefore the initial arrangements must be regarded as subject to development in the light of that work There will also be from September 2008 at least four further staff within the Discipleship and Ministries cluster of the Team, working as one specialist Team but covering the range of expertise across the 0-19 age range. If continued Government funding is obtained, and there are good reasons to be optimistic about that, this staffing level would be enhanced. In addition to that, the decisions of Conference to move forward on developing the Youth Participation strategy requires as a first step, in the view of the Joint Secretaries’ Group, a further, new complement of at least two staff, again, suitably qualified and experienced, to develop that project. The number would increase as and when the scale of the strategy is expanded towards the scale envisaged in the Youth Conference proposals. It will be necessary to recruit the two staff mentioned here within the connexional year 2007-08 in order to progress the participation process. All staff working on the Youth Participation strategy would also be part of the one Team supporting our work with children and young people. Adding all these together, we envisage at least seven full time equivalent posts from September 2008 covering the under-19s work. In addition there will be other staff providing administrative support, safeguarding advice, communications expertise and support for JMA and World Action, who will be located for management purposes in other parts of the Team, but all working together in a collaborative and flexible manger which will be the practice within the ways of working for the reconfigured Team.”
The original site is still online, however please note that you cannot now sign the petition. Thank you once again for your support.

Rob Redpath

Methodist Youth President 2006/07