Changes on Facebook for EYouthWNY

Youth Commission has spent a large part of the last year working on bringing our Guidelines for youth ministry up to date and in line with the best practices available.  We believe that the effort to keep our standards to best we can be is worthwhile and appropriate.

Well those standards are now complete (download a copy of them HERE) and now it's time to begin making sure that we live up to them.  That will include more opportunities for youth and adult leaders to prepare themselves plus clearer statements of who we are and what we're trying to do.

It also, inevitably, means that some things will need to change.

Beginning November 15 the current Facebook group will become a youth only page.  Parents who wish will have access.  Youth Commission has designated a four adult moderator team to insure that the community there is in line with our standards.  The initial team is Youth Missioner Jay Phillippi, Youth Commission Adult Chair Wendy Schumacher, E.J. Gryzwna and the Rev. Vicki Zust.  The team is chosen from established leaders in the overall diocesan youth ministry, balanced for gender and with a clergy representative.

A new public EYouthWNY Facebook page has now been launched which is open to everyone who is interested in keeping up with the news.  Our hope is that both pages will become active communities.  If you put the term "EYouthWNY" into the search box at the top of the Facebook page you will get results for a "group" and a "community".  The group is the original page, the community is the new one.  We invite everyone to "Like" the new page as soon as possible.

In order to insure that we create the appropriate safe area for our young people this means that adults, young adults, and "graduated youth"  need to leave the original group.  This can be done easily by using the gear shaped icon next to the word "Notifications" on the upper right hand corner just below the pictures on that page.  Click on it and you'll get a drop down menu.  On that menu is the option to "Leave Group".  Please click that option.

Our hope and intention for this is to create a space where our youth can safely interact with one another.  A space that is THEIRS and safe.  The best practices standards we examined made it clear that such a space needs to be limited to only those youth in that age group.  For our 'graduated youth' in college or in their 20s-30s I would note that there are Facebook pages already waiting for you to join.

 WNY Episcopal Campus Ministry  and WNY Episcopal 20s & 30s

If you have any questions or concerns please contact 

Jay Phillippi

Youth Missioner

eyouthwny@gmail.com