Video Conferencing with
Young People
In these extraordinary times,
you may want to consider virtual meetups with your youth group (secondary
school age – 11+). Here is some advice on how to do this safely. Please adhere
to the following points:
•
Avoid the use of
Skype / Facetime – these are social media tools and as such share contact
details with all users, you may inadvertently connect young people up with
other people as an unintended consequence.
•
Instead use a
video conferencing platform such as Zoom: https://zoom.us/ This is free to use (will give you a 40 min chat) or a
paid for account allows you to host longer sessions. Users only need to have an
email address for account setup.
• Use of this is beyond the normal running of your
group and therefore needs explicit permission before use in the following ways:
o You must have the Elders Meeting approval – speak to your Children’s and Youth Elder or Church
Secretary to discuss and minute that this is happening – why not trial a video
conference with some of these people first?! This does not need to be a
complicated process.
o You need parental consent – set up an email which explains what you are doing,
the date and time of the video conference session, which youth leaders are
participating and what you roughly will be doing. Ask for a reply as a form of
consent and keep these emails in a separate folder.
o Use parents/carers email address to send the meeting invite to, especially as young
people never check their emails(!) and this ensures parents/carers are aware
that it is happening and can set up the young people to access the session
appropriately with any oversight if they want.
• ‘Normal’ youth group rules would apply including
with regards to recruitment and safeguarding process – i.e. you need at least 2
safely recruited youth leaders present who would normally have ‘real time’
contact with this group. Make sure both leaders are live before young people
arrive. Ideally use the same time slot as your normal youth group meeting. If
new youth members want to join the group, they should have ‘normal’ group
consent forms filled in as well… you will want them to come to the real group
anyway when it re-forms. If you are recruiting new leaders for this group, then a safer
recruitment process must be followed before they can participate (please see https://urc.org.uk/good-practice-policy-and-procedures).
•
Codes
of conduct – appropriate behaviour for leaders should be followed as you would
expect in the usual youth group setting, it might be worth a discussion with
your leaders around this before the meeting happens.
•
As
always, be inclusive – are there any young people from your group who would
struggle to participate in this way, what extra support can be put in place for
them?
•
As
well as the video interface, there is usually space to write comments and
participants can screen share too – consider use of this facility for example
to write one-word answers to questions to share, be creative!
•
Be
aware of and sensitive to technical difficulties! There can be issues with
speakers and microphones! Chances are young people will have this sussed but
leaders may have issues… !! Use the software with leaders first to try and sort
out any difficulties.
•
DO
NOT RECORD. Most video conferencing software allows for the session to be
recorded – this is an option for the host of the meeting only. Avoid doing
this, as you would need separate permission for data capture and there are all
sorts of issues around storage, GDPR etc.
“Let us think of ways
to motivate one another
to acts of love and good works.
And let us not neglect
our meeting together,
as some people do,
but encourage one
another,
especially now that the
day of his return is drawing near.”
Hebrews 10:24-25
Adapted from a resource by
Simon Hill, Youth Officer, Diocese of Worcester
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