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Our church is in the beginning stages of putting together the information to start a pastoral search for a children and families pastor (so, like an assistant, or junior pastor, but with a focus on the families and kids younger than middle school). My husband and I have been asked to put together a few questions relevant to the issue of kids with special needs in the church.

We are a small church with a growing youth population, but NOT one of those churches with huge amounts of resources. Currently, we have regular attendees who have a variety of special needs including a wide variety of SLDs, ADHD, 2 with ASD, several older students with serious emotional issues, and I know of at least one family who chooses not to attend at all because of a child with multiple disabilities including downs, and she feels as if the staff wouldn't know how to handle her child, which is true.

So I could come up with questions, and have some ideas, but I know that some of you have had not so great experiences at churches and others better experiences, so I thought I'd broaden my net to see what you thought as well. What questions would you submit to the pastoral search committee that would help them in this area as they search?

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Wow, I have no clue. I think I'd just get my butt on the committee, because I don't think someone without a SN dc is going to pick up on things. You could have curveballs you don't even imagine. Like the church we tried to attend for a year and a half, the one ds is basically to frustrated to go back to, hired an assistant pastor who puts the ass in assistant. I kid you not. Like you talk disabilities with him, and he's like oh, I know all about that, I was a principle at a cs. And he's happy to criticize you (I see your ds does better with men than women) or make dangerous assertions (another family just left their kid with ASD to scream and now he's fine). 

So obviously that committee of white, elderly males that man was fine, but in the trenches the guy is so many levels of dangerous it's astonishing. And I suppose we could think up questions to try to weed it, but it might be more provocative to have the person in front of people parenting SN so he actually has to respond to something. I don't think I'd say your own situation in the questions but keep it really vague. You're more trying to pull out his internal bias, funky assumptions, and previous experiences. At the core you want to see if he's a "help the parents by identifying their family's needs and bringing in resources" or a suck it up buttercup kinda thing. And the guy we were dealing with would try, but he would always fall short. His internal biases, whatever he had been taught at podunk christian U, were so strong that he couldn't overcome them and be KIND or FLEXIBLE.

-What is your previous experience with children with behavior issues in church due to SN? How were they handled at the previous church and how would you like to see them handled here?

-What resources would you encourage a family in the church to pursue if you saw them struggling with a possible undiagnosed SN? (that's a really loaded question, because technically the church can't go say get evals, but they can say SOMETHING and you want to weed out if he has a really heavy bias against evals)

-What could we do better to meet the needs of our attendees dealing with Downs, ASD, and mental illness, whether children or adults. (again, you want to be provocative, sniff out his biases by using loaded terms)

-80% of families with ASD will divorce. What is your experience meeting the spiritual needs of these families and their children? (again, in some churches you're gonna hear a pin drop)

-Are you a donkey's butt, rigid, inflexible, and arrogant? (you're not allowed to ask that, but you'll wish you could. They try to hide it and it comes about by their stodgy professionalism, their willingness to take on anything instead of referring, their attitude that they have all the answers)

And the joke is, the features that make them all professional in their veneer and maybe make them confidence-inspiring to a committee might be the very things that make them UNWORKABLE to the families with SN. We had to leave the church, and I don't think that "left him to scream" family is there either. People just can't sustain that kind of neglect. And now that the senior pastor is aging and possibly grooming that younger, stick in the mud to take over, I'm basically giving up on them. If he's going to be the senior pastor eventually, it's over. I didn't think that was the norm, but I think because the senior pastor is elderly it might happen.

The real problem is the seminaries aren't giving them the courses they need. There *are* resources out there, but the seminaries are sometimes lost in their own stupidity and outdatedness. You can look at the school he went to and see what he was taught on SN and the DSM and have a pretty good start on figuring out how much you need to weed out. A person can overcome that background, but they'd have to have a thinking, questioning personality. At the christian university I went to, they're STILL telling people the DSM will send you to hell and not to use it, at least in the counseling classes. And at the seminary level the lead person teaching the counseling classes is of the mind that it's all the GUT. I'm like, my lands, has your theology not told you sin happens, genetic defects happen??? I mean they're literally THAT out of date. In the education dept, yes they're teaching the DSM and diagnosis and meeting needs, but over on the seminary/counseling side it's psychology will send you to hell, you should be quoting more Bible verses, if you were more spiritual you wouldn't have this problem, if the doctor can't find a physical explanation then it's a spiritual problem. It's a new religion they've made, worshipping and glorifying the GP as omniscient.

But that's the denomination I was raised in. Maybe your denomination is totally different, kwim? But in ours, that's how it starts, at the seminaries, with what they're being taught.

Edited by PeterPan
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1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

-Are you a donkey's butt, rigid, inflexible, and arrogant? (you're not allowed to ask that, but you'll wish you could. They try to hide it and it comes about by their stodgy professionalism, their willingness to take on anything instead of referring, their attitude that they have all the answers)

lol, this is exactly why we won't allow our kids to go to a certain summer camp again. And when discussing this issue with my husband, he was like, yeah your concern is they'll hire a guy like that! Uh huh! exactly! Flexibility, a willingness to learn, and a willingness to admit mistakes are huge to me.

 

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

but over on the seminary/counseling side it's psychology will send you to hell, you should be quoting more Bible verses, if you were more spiritual you wouldn't have this problem, if the doctor can't find a physical explanation then it's a spiritual problem. It's a new religion they've made, worshipping and glorifying the GP as omniscient.

But that's the denomination I was raised in. Maybe your denomination is totally different, kwim? But in ours, that's how it starts, at the seminaries, with what they're being taught.

This was how I was raised too. Our current senior pastor's viewpoint is that by living in a broken world, even our minds are broken and that's where the DSM stuff comes in. AND he is one of the best supporter we have for our SN kids. I need to see what classes he had available to him in the school he went to, that would be interesting. Also, a conversation with him about what he needs to look for might go further than a list of questions, I'm thinking. It's encouraging to me that they asked us for ideas, what to look for. It's at least a concern they are aware of. They haven't put together the search committee yet, so we'll see how the process goes.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts 🙂 Some of them mirror my own and a couple are good additions to what I already had!

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37 minutes ago, mamashark said:

btw, the 80% divorce rate for families with ASD has been debunked.

Dunno, haven't looked hard. It's pretty rampant on the lists I'm on (irl) and the stress level is high. That's what I think the church is not acknowledging or is just plain clueless about. You're either a leader and spiritual or you have problems. But I think we also got really burnt on this, sigh. 

1 hour ago, mamashark said:

This was how I was raised too. Our current senior pastor's viewpoint is that by living in a broken world, even our minds are broken and that's where the DSM stuff comes in. AND he is one of the best supporter we have for our SN kids. I need to see what classes he had available to him in the school he went to, that would be interesting.

That would get really interesting! He may have had some real life wake-up calls and things he had to deal with. I would think it will also make him more perceptive screening other people, because he's aware it's an issue. And in that sense you're right that the donkey assistant started with the very nice but clueless senior. And if he asked you, that's really good too! 

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44 minutes ago, mamashark said:

btw, the 80% divorce rate for families with ASD has been debunked.

https://www.claerygreen.com/Family-Law-Blog/2017/February/Does-Autism-Lead-to-More-Divorces-.aspx  This is an interesting article by a divorce attorney firm. They're saying there are conflicting data and that the rates went up as the kids reached their teen/adult years. It makes sense, because people hold it together to care for their kids. It's probably much more involved than a simple answer. Their explanation of some of the stressful dynamics is interesting, and that's the stuff the church has been CLUELESS about. There's this sort of idea that if people are good and have great beliefs that it will all sort out. Some things are just HARD. And you have confounding issues like de novo mutations vs. inherited ASD. So a study would have to be pretty thorough to sort through the probabilities on that. (ASD+ASD marriage, ASD + ADHD marriage, ASD+NT marriage, ADHD+NT marriage, gifted+gifted, NT+NT, etc.) To me it would vary that much. 

So they're saying in this article probably not 80%, but then what's twice as likely as families without? If the rates without are 40-50%, then would that be like 60-75%?? My math brain is failing me here.

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15 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Dunno, haven't looked hard. It's pretty rampant on the lists I'm on (irl) and the stress level is high. That's what I think the church is not acknowledging or is just plain clueless about. You're either a leader and spiritual or you have problems. But I think we also got really burnt on this, sigh.

Fair enough - I am not in a field that works with this or is knowledgeable about this, I simply did a quick, and admittedly cursory, google search on it. 

I know that our church has been taking a different approach to marriage since December, putting a lot of time, energy, and specific rubber-hits-the-road type help in place for families - both those with struggling families and for those who are not struggling (your marriage WILL hit a rough spot so let's work on it NOW kind of thing). I've never heard some of the things we've been talking about at other churches we've attended, and I do think that it's been very beneficial to my marriage specifically, even as we work through the various diagnosis and health issues of our kids.

12 minutes ago, PeterPan said:

Some things are just HARD. And you have confounding issues like de novo mutations vs. inherited ASD. So a study would have to be pretty thorough to sort through the probabilities on that. (ASD+ASD marriage, ASD + ADHD marriage, ASD+NT marriage, ADHD+NT marriage, gifted+gifted, NT+NT, etc.) To me it would vary that much. 

Yes, I see your point here and I agree. There is always an issue with statistics and thinking deeper about all the issues that have a play in it. This is why I'm struggling with the concept of ABA, it's appearing too cut and dried, too clinical and without taking into consideration other issues at play. I'm hoping the behaviorist we get paired with will be more holistic in thought and practice.

So then let me ask this - what would you see as more helpful? What types of training could churches use for their volunteer teachers that would be broad enough yet specific enough, allow for flexibility, yet not overwhelm?  Teachers have all types of classes, trainings, talks, etc. they can go though to learn all sorts of helpful information, but Churches don't often have the funds to put their volunteers through those types of intense trainings, and often they are too specific to education to be helpful in a church setting. And getting the SN moms to volunteer to teaching isn't a good answer either.

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4 minutes ago, mamashark said:

I'm hoping the behaviorist we get paired with will be more holistic in thought and practice.

Well I found our behaviorist via word of mouth. She's not a BCBA but was in the field before. if they're BCBA, they will be pretty heavily trained in straight ABA. Hopefully they have broader experience. I'm not saying to straight, pure, some dude from a book ABA. I'm talking umbrella, naturalistic, head on straight. 

One thing you can ask is their experience with homeschoolers and the gifted. You can ask what other things they bring in, etc. Dump someone who is a poor fit, that's for sure.

What works about our behaviorist is she's there for the longhaul, she respects the role of the parent, she wants to bring in as much support as the parent needs at that time, and she's seen where techniques backfire on kids like mine. Gifted + aggression ++ is really tricky. There are a lot of things you can do that will make it WORSE, much worse. It takes a lot of deep breaths and long-term view and talking it through. She says stuff straight but she also just listens a lot, which helps. She considers her role partly a sounding board. If I can talk (I have the data) and she bounces back with observations, then we're problem solving together. It's very collaborative like that.

And each person on our team is always very different. It's about being respectful and knowing what you can bring and what you don't bring and finding people to get it done. My ds EATS UP hours. He LOVES having high quality workers, and we've had to UP the quality over and over. My last worker was a doctoral student in OT, so fab. High quality people like that make a big difference!! It's preposterous to say well you'd put him in with some novice. It's not just the warm body but the quality of the interaction, their confidence to make demands, their ability to come in fresh. I need to list for another worker, sigh. Ours went to a fellowship this summer in another state. 

10 minutes ago, mamashark said:

what would you see as more helpful?

There are ministries like Key Ministries that are training churches. They bring in their whole team and just get it done, boom. It's like 3 days, share hotels. It's money but not SO expensive. They just did one. But you know I think sometimes churches think too hard and scare themselves out of doing ANYTHING. They could have started with the one. A major church near us started servicing just a couple SN kids who needed buddies, and after they did that enough to work out some kinks for how it would look in their setting, they went to their denomination for training to go bigger.

I finally hired a worker, paired her, and started taking her to church. That's my worker who just left for the summer, sigh. Serious loss. Reality is no church is prepared to do what my ds needed. He was better with a paid, dedicated worker to get him to a point where he would be ready to work with a volunteer or integrate and not need a worker. So it's not like we expect the church to solve everything. But not everyone has funding and Sunday workers are hard to find, really hard. REALLY hard.

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