Steve Younger at IACS Conference January 2020

IACS Conference in Netherlands, 23rd – 25th January 2020

This month Steve has been in the Netherlands for a European conference on Children’s spirituality. This was the ‘Dag van de Kinderspiritualiteit’ (‘A day to explore children’s spirituality’) arranged by Dr.Liesbeth Vroemen, a fellow-member of the International Association on Children’s Spirituality. She is the director of a movement called ‘Oblimon’ which offers training for Dutch teachers in helping pupils and students to develop their spiritual literacy and understanding. Steve spoke at the inaugural meeting two years ago. This conference is open to practitioners from across Europe with the sessions being in English and Dutch.

This year’s venue was the Albertinum, a former Dominican Monastery, that is now a part of the University of Nijmegen. The University also hosts the Titus Brandsma Centre for the study of Spirituality. Three other delegates came from the UK: Professor Kate Adams (Winchester University) was one of these and she was also the keynote speaker. The other two were a SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) and an RME adviser from England. Prof. Adams’ talk was on the ‘Unseen Worlds’ i.e. children’s perceptions of spirituality and of spiritual realities. The programme allowed for each participant to attend two seminars as well. These were in Dutch with translators available.

Steve was able to attend Lara Schout’s seminar on ‘Zinvol Tekenen’ (‘meaningful drawings’) which is a method of spiritual literacy and exploration using art therapy techniques and questions. He also attended Ineke Struijk’s seminar on ‘Kinderboeken en gesprekken over wat je niet ziet maar wel voet’ (‘Children’s Books and conversations about things you can’t see’) which uses the texts and pictures in children’s books to open up conversations on values and spirituality. Both were excellent seminars with ideas that would readily adapt to explorations of spirituality in a Scottish school setting. As well as the seminars there was time to make connections in small groups. Steve met with Jac a specialist in values exploration in Dutch Education. He had first met her two years ago. She has asked Steve to come back to the Noord-Holland region of the Netherlands later this year to speak to teachers about spiritual development within Scottish Education. She thinks it would be an excellent model for Dutch education.