Allchurches Trust has launched a new grants programme – Growing Lives – aimed at helping churches and Christian organisations throughout the UK and Ireland to connect with children and young people and forge lasting links with families in their local area.
Grants of up to £25,000 are available, and the amount you receive will depend upon the cost of your project and level of need in your community, ranging from 10% of project cost through to 80%. You can apply for funding under the Growing Lives programme even if you have received a grant from Allchurches Trust within the last two years.
Liz Morton, Children, Young People and Families Team Leader for the diocese urged people to apply for funding: "This is a new stream of funding available for parishes wanting to look at growing faith in children and young people, which is great news.
"If parishes need help thinking what they might do, the Children, Young People and Families Team are happy to help them think through their plans and can be contacted at childrenyouth@leeds.anglican.org, " Liz said.
Many churches of all denominations and Christian organisations are already running innovative, impactful projects that are helping young people to explore and grow in faith, get active, access training and work opportunities, develop life and leadership skills and feel less isolated. Others are running major social action initiatives in some of our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods.
However, recent research by Allchurches Trust has shown that while 82 per cent of churches provide activities for children aged 0 to 10 years; that figure drops to 58 per cent of churches working with young people aged 11 to 18, and 41per cent rate the support they provide to this older age group as inadequate.
Our poll also revealed that 96 per cent of churches would like to offer more activities for children and teenagers if they had all of the right skills and resources in place to do so.
For more ideas about how this new programme could help your church or Christian organisation and to apply online, visit www.allchurches.co.uk/growinglives