Church Leaders FAQ 

The course consists of four sessions run over four weeks; with each session being ninety minutes, including a fifteen minute break. The sessions would be run by a volunteer appointed by the church to be a “Spurgeons Ambassador”.

The course is designed for parents of babies, toddlers and children of primary school age. Each weekly session covers two major parenting skills:

Week 1: Attachment and Child-led Play

Week 2: Specific Praise and Emotions

Week 3: Ignoring and Keeping Calm

Week 4: Clear Instructions and Household Rules

If churches are running parenting courses for their local community we would recommend the Ambassador would be CRB checked, since parents might be classed as “vulnerable adults”.

The Ambassador would need to be supported by an assistant to help them welcome attendees, and generally support the Ambassador in encouraging participation.

You would need to have a designated person available for the Ambassador to contact about any potential safeguarding questions they might have.

They would also need to be available for the Ambassador to contact if any of the attendees have indicated that they and/or their children are at risk.

On signing up, parents would only be asked to give basic details such as name and contact details. Any information gathered would need to come under the Privacy and GDPR policies of your church.

Each session takes 90 minutes to deliver. The Ambassador and their assistant should add additional time to prepare each session; for example to prepare name badges and parenting workbooks.

We recommend that Ambassadors ask parents at the first session if they would be open to receiving a phone call during the next few weeks to check if they are happy with the course and find it clear and useful.

Spurgeons has provided online training for the Spurgeons Ambassadors on each subject, as well as training on how to run a group. This training should take no more than half a day. The training is free and made available one the Church leader confirms to Spurgeons that they will provide a suitable volunteer and undertake to keep any parenting info subject to privacy and GDPR laws.

 Spurgeons provides:

• On-demand online training for Ambassadors
• An Ambassador’s Handbook to be downloaded for free
• Detailed step by step guidelines both online and in the Ambassador’s Handbook as to what to do during each session
• A Parenting Workbook which can be downloaded for free for each parent
• Animated videos on parenting skills to be shown to the parents
• Powerpoint presentations for the Ambassador to summarise the main points of each parenting topic covered