A new listening resource inspired by the work of our Youth Engagement & Intergenerational Communities Enabler, Matt Long and our Bishops Youth and Children’s Council has been released as part of a national Church of England project.
‘We Hear You’ is a fun, easy to follow session to do with children and young people. The concept is simple – school, church and community leaders run the four activities and then feedback their findings.
The resource is intended to help us all understand what children and young people value in their leaders and what the next generation of school and church leaders could look like. The guide was inspired by a listening exercise we ran in the Diocese of Leicester in Autumn 2023, which found that children and young people valued “loving” as the most important quality in a leader.
The online survey for feedback will run for the whole of 2025, with a chance to win a £100 Eden voucher. The findings will be shared with dioceses and fed into future Children’s and Youth Ministry Training and Ordination Training.
'We Hear You' has been launched by the CofE’s 30k Project, which aims to raise up 30,000 new children and youth ministers by 2030 and ensure they are equipped with everything they need for their ministry. The resource has been developed in collaboration with the Growing Faith Foundation, who coordinate listening sessions across the country covering a wide range of topics. Tobi Omoloso, who is the Growing Faith Coordination Specialist, said: "This is a great resource that specifically aims to learn what children and young people value in their leaders."
We would encourage you to use this resource in your setting and feed back to the project, especially if you didn’t participate in our original exercise in Autumn 2023. In addition, we continue to run our own listening exercises in the diocese. We are about to close our exercise on Poverty and a new resource about Safeguarding will be released in the Spring.
‘We Hear You’ can be found on the Church Support Hub.
Find our current listening exercise and past reports on our website.
Further Information:
What do we hope to learn through ‘We Hear You’?
The Church of England aims to double the number of children and young people in our churches by 2030. In order to achieve this we want to ensure that churches are ready with Children’s, Young People and Families (CYPF) Ministers who can respond to the needs of this generation. But how do we know what the needs of this generation are? - Very simply, we ask them.
What are Listening Groups?
Listening groups are facilitated spaces, where children and/or young people are asked to share their thoughts and ideas, in response to a series of conversation prompts and interactive activities. Here is the Process...
01 Listening – Facilitators run listening groups in school and church contexts and record the responses.
02 Feedback – Facilitators submit responses into the online survey and enter a draw to win a £100 Eden voucher for their group. Draws will be held in April, August and December 2025
03 Reporting - the Church of England’s 30k Project will create a report of all the listening sessions from across the country. This will be sent to dioceses and fed into future CYPF Ministry Training and Ordination Training.
The deadline for feedback is the end of 2025. There will be an interim report in May 2025.
Who do I contact if I have any questions?
Email the30kproject@churchofengland.org with any queries or comments about ‘We Hear You’.
Email Matt.Long@LeicesterCofE.org for information about our other listening exercises.