Narrabri Schools Ministry
Encouraging young people to find their worth and value.
Pastoral Care
Pastoral Care is simply offering an empathetic ear for people to express those things which are weighing them down or even stressing them out. Pastoral care is offered to all persons associated with the School.
Students are never told they must speak to the Christian Youth Worker, they are presented with the opportunity. They are also permitted to walk out of the office at any time. Chris the Christian Youth Worker can be found either in his office attached to the Living Room or may be out in the playground speaking with students and teachers. Where appropriate the school will permit students to spend some class time talking over more significant issues in private.
It has been found that students who are stressed emotionally are less able to learn in the classroom. It is beneficial at times for a student to step out of class for a short period to deal with their stress and emotions before returning to class.
D.A.M. Conversations
Deep And Meaningfuls
D.A.M. conversations are those more significant conversations where additional time and emotional energy are spent discussing emotional and spiritual issues at a deeper level. D.A.M. stands for deep and meaningful. These conversations are generally unplanned with individuals stepping (sometimes stomping) into the office plonking down into one of the chairs and sighing. Other times students will ask "Can I talk to you?"
D.A.M.s will cover a range of topics from students not coping with school, teachers desiring prayer, or anyone with relationship issues, be it friend or romantic interest. The truth is that with our busy lives often it seems like we are trying to carry our burdens all on our own. But this does not need to be the case. Jesus assured us that we do not need to go through this life on our own. He promised to be with us even until the end of the age. When we are realistic in the darkest of times we often can't see him, or we can begin to doubt if he truly cares. this is where the D.A.M.s become really effective. One individual demonstrating that they genuinely care can be the thing to bring us back out of the darkness.
Think about a Dam wall for a moment. Dam walls are designed to hold back a tremendous amount of water. While the water in the Dam remains below a certain level the wall holds tight. Most large dams in Australia have been built in a river system. This is intentionally so that there is a regular flow of water into the dam. This also means that the dams need to have some sort of planned outlet for the water.
If the dam doesn't have a planned outlet or it becomes blocked some how, the water level will build up above the walls maximum level. At this point either the wall will begin to buckle under the weight or the water will overflow the top. Water over flowing the top will erode the foundations weakening the wall. Either way the wall will crumble causing catastrophic flooding down stream.
This is why dam walls have spill ways built into them for the controlled release of water. When the water is released in a controlled manner catastrophic wall collapse can be avoided.
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This is the same as our emotional tanks. Each of us have a capacity to deal with stress and emotions. Our capacities are different from each other, and the flow in of stress and emotions is constantly changing. One thing is common for us all, we all have a limit on how much we can hold back. We all need to find someway of releasing the pressure of these stresses and emotions. A D.A.M. conversation is one way of releasing the pressure. By speaking about the tensions and feelings we are able to release the emotions in a controlled way. This will help to avoid the catastrophic wall failure where we blow up at someone. Just like a dam if we can control the release of our emotions we can prevent the disaster down stream of us losing control. Also just like a dam wall our emotional dam wall can be rebuilt after a disaster but it takes time and intentional steps.
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Prevention is better than repair.