Jim Schuster High School Ministry Volunteer Coordinator In-office: Mon-Thurs afternoons This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 703-451-8576 x42 I'm super-excited to be starting my second year here at St. B's! This is my fourth year in full-time ministry and I definitely have the best job in the world! God has blessed me abundantly and there is nothing I would rather do with my life than share the peace and joy I have found in Him with others! I'm really into music, especially playing guitar and discovering new bands nobody else knows about! I'm also big on sports - soccer, ultimate Frisbee, and basketball topping the list - and I am extremely competitive! Really, any kind of challenge appeals to me, whether it's striving for the peak when hiking and braving white water rapids, or a rousing game of Backgammon and a Sudoku puzzle!

Jonna Schuster  High School Ministry Junior High Ministry In-office: Mon-Thurs afternoons This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 703-451-8576 x39 This is my fifth year here at St. B's, and I can honestly say that I love my job! God is my passion, and I enjoy seeking Him in the many ways that He shows Himself in our world...and then sharing those findings with others! Particular interests of mine include art (especially graphic design and photography), adventures (especially when they're outdoor-related or food-related), and music. I am also hopelessly attracted to mysteries, which is a large reason that I enjoy studying theology. It also explains why I've read every Nancy Drew book every written, why I can't get enough of the show 24, and why you'll often find me at Starbucks chatting with friends about how to solve the world's problems!

THIS YEAR'S THEME:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in his great mercy gave us a new birth to a living hope…
to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.”  - 1 Peter 1:3-4

"Christian, remember your dignity."  - St. Leo the Great

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YOUTH MINISTRY MISSION STATEMENT

The department of Youth Ministry at St. Bernadette Church exists to serve one overall purpose: to make disciples of the youth of our parish. It is our mission to enable and equip 7th-12th graders to claim their Christian identity and to understand and fulfill their calling to believe in Christ, to know Christ, to love Christ, and to serve Christ.

Our program aims to stir up a hunger in the hearts of the youth to experience the living God and to respond to His invitation to discipleship. This we seek to accomplish by offering them tangible encounters with Christ through godly relationships and community, through prayer and the Sacraments, and through a deeper, relevant, and practical exploration of the Truths found in our Catholic Faith. In addition to both challenging and inspiring the youth to respond to God, it is also our aim to prepare and teach them how to engage the world from a Christian perspective, how to combat difficulties in living as a disciple in this age, and how to penetrate the darkness of our culture with the Light of Christ.

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YOUTH MINISTRY POLICIES ON
ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL NETWORKING

Dear Parents,

If you have a child who plans to participate in St. Bernadette's CYO or ARISE activities, you are asked to sign a Long-Term Medical Information and Liability Waiver for your child. Part of this document includes the following "Use of electronic communication" statement:

• Use of electronic communication: I give my permission for St. Bernadette Youth Ministers and CYO (or ARISE) Volunteers to communicate with my child through the following electronic means: email, text messaging, and Facebook. This permission is granted with the understanding that communication will take place at reasonable times and in limited durations. Parents/guardians who do not wish to grant this permission should notify St. Bernadette's Office of Youth Ministry in writing.

With this statement, we also provided the following description of why keeping these modes of communication open with our teens is important to us:

• Texting, Facebook, and email are a growing part of the world teens live in. St. Bernadette's CYO (or ARISE) employs these means as a part of our effort to reach students "where they are," yet recognizes the need for total transparency with parents in this area.

We would like to provide you here with the guidelines that St. Bernadette's Youth Ministers and Volunteers are required to follow in making use of social media, followed by some FAQ on the subject.

• 1. CYO youth workers are to use prudent judgment in the times they contact students through social media. The "home phone rule" is a basic rule of thumb to use - do not text, chat, or email back-and-forth with students at a time you would not normally call their home phone line, i.e. after about 10:00 PM.
  2. If situations arise where the youth worker considers it more urgent to hold an e-conversation outside of these times, he/she is to let the parent know that the conversation took place. For example, a youth worker may send a quick email to the parent stating, "Billy/Susie texted me really upset last night around 11:00 pm. Since that was kind of late, I just wanted to let you know that we texted back and forth for about 20 minutes. He/She seemed to be doing better when our conversation ended."
  3. When youth workers become "Facebook Friends" with a youth, they are to extend a Friend invitation to that child's parents as well (when possible).
  4. Youth workers are to save substantial text conversations they have with students through any means. Parents may request to view the content of these conversations at any time.
  5. Junior High ARISE: E-Communications are used significantly less with Jr. High students than with High School students. There are certain additional restrictions that youth workers are bound to in this area. For instance, Facebook requires account-holders to be at least 13 years of age. As such, youth workers may not "Friend" students they know to be under the required age.

These guidelines are intended to establish an environment of total transparency and integrity with parents in the use of electronic communications. Since youth ministry requires building relationships with the youth served and trust is an important component of that, an appropriate level of confidence between youth workers and youth is necessary to building relationships, and parents and youth can expect us to honor that. Confidentiality does not extend, however, to high-risk situations - suicidal tendencies, drug use, abuse, and anything that presents a serious risk to the health and safety of the teens. All youth workers are required to notify parents as soon as possible when their children disclose high-risk situations.

FAQ

Why the policy?
Parents are rightly interested in monitoring their children's activity via these media. The root of the concern is that new technologies are making youth more accessible to others, even from great distances. Having an established policy among St. Bernadette's youth workers increases our accountability and establishes an environment of integrity and transparency with parents.

Why not prohibit the use of these means among youth workers?
Building relationships is essential to ministry. As the saying goes, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care! E-communications have become such a significant part of the lives of teens today that efforts to build and maintain relationships would be severely impeded by excluding these means. We believe that communicating openly with parents about these matters is the best way to address their rightful concerns honorably while helping us remain effective in our ministry efforts.

Does the Diocese have any policies on the matter?
The Diocese of Arlington has left it to individual parishes to ultimately determine how they will use e-communications for the purposes of youth ministry (there are, however, established policies for employees in Catholic schools). In their Social Media Guidelines, released in June 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has the following to say regarding "Social Networking with Minors:"

• Be sure to have permission from a minor's parent or guardian before contacting the minor via social media or before posting pictures, video, and other information that may identify that minor.

  Parents must have access to everything provided to their children. For example, parents should be made aware of how social media are being used, be told how to access the sites, and be given the opportunity to be copied on all material sent to their children via social networking (including text messages). While parents should be provided with the same material as their children, it does not have to be via the same technology (that is, if children receive a reminder via Twitter, parents can receive it in a printed form or by an e-mail list).

  Church personnel should be encouraged to save copies of conversations whenever possible, especially those that concern the personal sharing of a teen or young adult. (This may be especially important with text messaging.)