Spiritual Nurture of Children
When children thrive, they experience love in their families and communities. They exhibit hope, a sense of purpose and agency for the future.
Children grow up in families, neighbourhoods, and communities of faith that can build a safe, loving and caring environment vital for children’s holistic development. Children with two generations of caregivers—parents and grandparents who emphasised spiritual development showed 80% less depression than children who did not.
Churches and other faith-based partners are essential alongside families to support children's thriving.
Children’s spiritual development is an essential aspect of holistic development, necessary for them to experience fullness of life. It influences children's well-being and affirms their human dignity.
Working directly with children and adolescents, World Vision ensures spiritual nurture through an integrated approach in kids’ clubs, nurturing care groups and youth engagement, ensuring spiritual care is offered in culturally and faith-appropriate ways. This is done in partnership with families, local churches and faith communities. Dare to Discover targets teenagers with a series of lessons that reinforce their God-given dignity and value, encourage a sense of hope, purpose and self-efficacy.
World Vision advocates for and equips families and faith leaders to provide spiritual support for children, to help children build their resilience, promote healing and strengthen positive coping strategies. Valuing Children in the Church is a workshop for faith leaders and lay leaders to understand God’s heart for children, encouraging meaningful children’s participation in the life of the faith community, building effective children and faith-based ministries and strengthening relationships with children and adolescents.
Through Celebrating Families and other spiritual nurture of children resources, World Vision works with families and faith communities to ensure that they can be vital sources of positive relationships, hope and empowerment for children and youth.
Celebrating Families equips parents, caregivers and faith leaders, community influencers with the knowledge of the importance of having a safe environment where children are loved and are free to explore and discover God. The Celebrating Families equips them with the skills to translate these principles into practical actions that can be applied within the family context by addressing beliefs, convictions and cultures that contribute to harmful attitudes, norms, values and practices of raising children.
Celebrating Families has supported the spiritual nurture of children in more than 60 countries. Children gained knowledge and skills to develop their own spirituality from their parents, faith leaders and community influencers.
Case studies in Tanzania, Myanmar and Afghanistan demonstrate that Celebrating Families created an enabling environment for child participation, supporting an enabling environment for children to thrive.
In partnership with the Consortium on Nurturing Values and Spirituality in Early Childhood for the Prevention of Violence, World Vision has developed a toolkit designed complement holistic development approaches and to be integrated in existing parenting, education and/ or ECD programmes.
The Toolkit presents a Learning Programme for Adults as well as Activities for Children.
Government and multilateral actors have an essential role to play in creating appropriate space for faith actors and families to support this work, particularly for the most vulnerable children, such as those on the move.