One of the most important messages your church sends through Vacation Bible School (VBS) is that God loves and values everyone—especially children with special needs. A church that ignores these needs tells parents and children that God’s love is only for a select few.
Making your VBS more inclusive isn’t difficult and doesn’t need to break the bank either. Here are seven tips for making your VBS accessible to more of your community’s children.
1. Build a Special Needs Team
No one person on your VBS team (or in your church) can fully anticipate the needs of all special-needs children. It’ll take multiple perspectives to see these diverse needs.
Start with any parent or grandparent of special-needs children in your church. Then, reach out to special education teachers and therapists.
While this team will be invaluable for VBS, you can lean on it all year long for children’s programming. Ensure participants understand this will be a standing team (committee) of the church).
A good first step for this team is finding local or national training opportunities. You can enlist local educators to help with training. You can also check with nearby churches that might be further along in special needs ministry.
2. Offer a “Buddy” System.
Everyone needs a buddy! Children with special needs can particularly benefit from a trained volunteer spending time with them and helping them fully participate in VBS. Buddies can help students move between stations, participate in games, or explain activities. Every student with special needs will likely need a different type of help.
Involve parents in matching their children with buddies. Introduce buddies to the children at a unique pre-VBS mixer. This should help ease anxiety and make for a more comfortable experience once VBS gets started.
3. Create Sensory-Friendly Spaces.
While many of the children may gravitate toward loud music and bright lights, they can be overwhelming for others. Provide a much-needed place where these children can retreat when needed. In this space, include soft lighting, comfortable seating, fidget toys, weighted blankets, and noise-canceling headphones to help children who may feel overstimulated.
Large-group activities and worship times can be some of the most difficult VBS spaces for special-needs children. If you can offer alternatives for those times, that will be helpful.
Transitions can be challenging for special-needs children. Visual schedules and countdown timers can help them prepare for these periods.
4. Adapt Activities for Different Abilities.
Don’t require every child to participate in the same ways. Special-needs children often must participate differently. When possible, modify games and crafts for different ability levels.
For example, when planning active games, offer a seated or slower-paced alternative. For arts and crafts, consider different tools to accommodate varying motor skills, such as thicker markers for children with limited dexterity.
Also, consider giving students who need extra time to complete activities. If you include competitions, make sure you’re not rewarding the same skillsets each time.
5. Communicate with Parents Ahead of Time.
No one will know the unique needs of the children at your VBS as well as their parents. Start the conversation as far in advance as possible.
In smaller churches, go to parents early on and ask what kinds of accommodations would help their children participate more fully. You may not be able to accommodate every request, but starting early gives you additional time to explore more options.
Consider an FAQ sheet explaining accommodations you’ve offered in the past. If possible, connect parents from past years to special-needs parents who will participate this summer so they can discuss what has worked in the past.
6. Train Your Team on Inclusion.
Unless your volunteers have experience with special-needs children, they likely don’t know the best practices to ensure the VBS experience is engaging for them. Provide all your volunteers with a small amount of training related to spotting and meeting the unique needs of the largest populations of special-needs children, including those with Attention Deficit Disorder, autism, mobility struggles, etc.
If you have access to tools that help with accommodations (sensory-friendly spaces, wheelchairs, etc.), make sure all your volunteers know where to find them.
7. Make Worship and Bible Lessons More Accessible.
Your time of worship and Bible lessons are two of the most important teaching times you have during VBS. You’ll want to pay special attention to ensure everyone can participate. For example, consider …
- Incorporating sign language for key phrases in songs.
- Providing visual storyboards and hands-on activities for Bible lessons.
- Including a picture-based communication system for nonverbal children.
- Providing props, puppets, and acting out Bible stories can help you engage all learning styles with the Bible stories.
- Being as flexible as possible with the teaching methods employed.
Make sure you have a mechanism in place to get feedback after VBS to find out from parents (and children when possible) what worked and what didn’t when it comes to making your VBS more accessible.
To learn more about making this year’s VBS your best yet, download our free guide, Moments That Matter: How to Create a Life-Changing VBS Experience.
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