The children and young people are in small groups for time away, so one or two leaders are specifically looking out for them.

We ask who children would like to share rooms with, and make every effort to put them with at least one or two of the people they named. If we aren’t able to do that, we will try to inform the people involved beforehand. We also place children in teams, so they meet people outside their normal friendship group. Our aim is not just to strengthen existing friendships, but also to help everyone build new ones.

On longer residentials, we have ‘angels’ to encourage every individual and send notes to them. If you have a concern during the time away, do please contact the residential leader. If your child becomes very upset during a residential, if they’re injured or become ill, or an incident involving your child happens, we will ring you as soon as practically possible to discuss how you want us to proceed.

We are aware that children and young people need sleep. We will do our very best to ensure that your child’s room has the light off at a reasonable time and is quiet soon after. Please contact us if this is a particular concern before or during the event.

We will separate the boys’/girls’ sleeping areas: sometimes on separate floors, sometimes in separate buildings. These are clearly marked and strictly adhered to. If your child is gender questioning, then please do have a conversation with us. We want to make sure they can attend and will have a good time.

There will be some free time if young people need to do homework, but please contact the residential leader if extra time is needed.

We have a First Aider who will have done a minimum of a half day course in Emergency First Aid. We will contact you immediately if there is a serious accident involving your child.

Please do tell us if your child has any additional needs, even if it is that they sleep better on an upper bunk, or they are feeling nervous because they don’t know many people, or they have particular eating habits or it’s their first time away from home.

We will try very hard to accommodate any special needs. Please let your child know too that we have seen almost everything before, and we’ll work hard to make sure they have the best time.

This is normally possible and we’d love to facilitate this. Please contact us, before you organise transport.

We do have a budget for those who cannot afford residentials. There is a subsidy form above. We don’t want this to be the reason your child doesn’t attend. If they’re a part of the group, we want them there. Pay what you can, when you can.

Any swimming will have a trained lifeguard. Other activities will have properly qualified leaders where appropriate. As part of our policy on residentials, risk assessments are always completed, and we have very experienced leaders on every residential, who will continually be doing dynamic risk assessment. Our first aim is always child safety.

All of our leaders have an enhanced DBS (previously an enhanced CRB) certificate and will have completed the necessary Church of England safeguarding training. In addition, we have very clear guidelines, which are given to each leader and strictly abided by, including not going into a room alone with a young person.

The legal requirement in terms of ratio of leaders to children is 1:8, but in fact we normally have a ratio closer to 1:4.

We welcome everyone in the right age group. They don’t need to have ever been to XPC, Pathfinders, or Download, or church to come on one of our residentials. We’ve had people join us from Bahrain, France and the USA!

See also, How will my child be cared for?

Logistics should not be the reason a child doesn’t attend. Our teams like to say that nearly anything is possible. If, for example, getting to the ferry for a weekend away on the Isle of Wight is the problem, just get in touch and ask about a lift. Other parents/carers or leaders always have spare seats going down or coming back. The main thing for us is having your child with us, and we’ll work hard to get them there.

There will be Bible talks and sung worship on most of our residentials, but you are more than welcome, whatever you believe. We normally have small groups after the talks where you can say, ‘Actually, I don’t believe any of this.’ We completely expect this. People come to our groups from many backgrounds and you will always be respected. If you read the Bible, Jesus had special care for people who weren’t religious at all, and some sharp words for those who were religious. We always aim to cherish people well, whatever they believe.