In today's episode, Sandra Peoples chats with Tracy McElhattan, PhD, about how to apply universal design for learning principles (UDL) to our children's ministry classes so everyone can be included and engaged!
Listen Anywhere You Find Podcasts!
Sandra Peoples: Hi friends, this is Sandra Peoples. I am one of your co-hosts for Key Ministry the podcast, and this is Episode 95. That's a lot of episodes! And today I'm super excited because my friend Tracy Mcelhatton is with us and she's going to talk about universal design for learning. Really what we're talking about, is how do we take the curriculum in our typical mainstream Sunday School classes, and make sure that everybody has access to the learning and applying what they're learning, kids with disabilities, kids without disabilities, everybody has better access to the main point of the lesson. So that's really what Universal design for Learning is about!
**Advertisement** One in five people in the world live with a disability so it shouldn't be difficult to find lots of images to represent this. However, that’s not always the case. Disability is Beautiful provides an exhaustive library of art provided by and for the disability community. Our photos reflect the beauty, diversity, and strength of the disability community. Whether you're a business owner, a content creator, or an advocate, Disability Is Beautiful has photos for use in blogs, websites, social media, printed materials, business, nonprofit or personal projects. Visit disabilityisbeautiful.com to create your free account and help us change the face of stock photography.
SP: I met Tracy because we were on an advisory team together for Lifeway. But I already knew about Tracy because when I taught 1st and 2nd grade Sunday school, we used Lifeway’s Bible Studies for Life curriculum and in the back of that curriculum there are alternative activities and ways to apply lessons for kids with special needs (I think that's what the title of it says) and Tracy writes those! So, I was using her material even before I put together that she was the one writing it!
And we're both really big Oklahoma State fans, and so we bond over that. I have to say Oklahoma State instead of OSU because most of our Key Ministry team is in Ohio. And so, instead of OSU, they're like Ohio state I’m like “No, the cowboys!!” Oklahoma State!
Tracy McElhatten: and they they make sure and say “The Ohio state university i'm sure”
SP: I know, we won’t be too hard on them, but we do have the brightest orange!
TM: It’s America's brightest orange, it's the best!
SP: So I am super excited to have Tracy with us! Tracy, tell us a little bit about yourself before we jump in.
TM: Sure so I currently am on staff at Blue Valley Church in Overland Park, KS. I have been here for almost nine years, which is just absolutely crazy to me because it's gone by in a hurry. But I am the director of early childhood, so I work with our preschool and kindergarten kiddos. But in addition to that, I also work for Lifeway just contract writing, and I help write their Special Buddies curriculum, which is part of Bible Studies for Life, and then I also wrote that article like you said earlier.
But in my prior life, before ministry, I was an early childhood special education teacher. I did that for several years and my heart was really inclusive education. I used to work for Stillwater Public Schools in Oklahoma and got to work with some fantastic teachers and families and we really worked hard at making sure our program was inclusive, and that was really the first time that program had done that, and I just learned a lot through that. I ended up moving to go to the University of Kansas to get a PhD in Special Education. I wanted to be a professor, that was my dream. But the Lord just called me otherwise, and so here I am on staff at a church and it's really opened a lot of doors to be able to meet cool people like you, and be able to help churches learn how to be more inclusive. And that is just been a huge unexpected blessing and I love. And then besides that I'm a wife and a mother, and that's one of the best jobs of course.
SP: That’s fun. That’s really cool! I mean, what a blessing to the church to have somebody with your experience and with your education, and I mean like all of our churches, like, specifically your church, but for all of us who use Lifeway curriculum, all of us who get to listen to this podcast and learn from your experiences, I just love how God like weaves that together, you know ties everything.
TM: And he continues to confirm it too and like the most unexpected ways, (this is a side note) but I had visited with a professor a couple of years ago kind of trying to think about do I want to stay in church or do I want to try to go back into you know University work. And I brought my professor like my curriculum or my CV, my resume and some other things that I had done for Lifeway and I showed them to her and we had this long conversation about like where I could probably be a professor and that sort of thing, but when it came to the end, she saw like the curriculum that I had helped provide and the work that I was doing, and she's not a believer, OK? Not a believer. And she said, why in the world would you go anywhere else? You're the only person that I know of doing what you do. Why would you go anywhere else? And it was just like the Lord saying you need to stay exactly where you are. So, he continues to confirm that call and it's a blessing and just totally humbling sometimes.
SP: Yeah, that's really cool. Did you work on this year's VBS special buddy stuff?
TM: No, I don't do anything with the VBS, I think there's another gal on my special buddies team I think she does a lot of it possibly but I don’t do VBS.
SP: We're looking at it really like the overall theme, like everybody's theme this year I really like It's got a very kind of apologetics feel to it.
TM: Yes, my Children's Minister and I are just absolutely thrilled with how it's something that is so relevant for kids this year!
SP: I think at our church we do like inclusive kids, any kid can come to VBS, but this year we're doing a very specific one in July for kids with more profound disabilities. And so that's where we'll use the Special Buddies curriculum and then in our other, like regular VBS, we'll just make some adaptations. But, this is the first time we've done a disability specific VBS more super excited about it!
TM: That’s exciting!
SP: It’ll be fun, we’re just going to do it Wednesday mornings for the month of July.
TM: That’s a good plan!
SP: Yeah, I think it will be fun. Well, let me tell everybody who's listening, why we're talking about Universal Design for Learning today. I am taking classes and even though my classes are in family ministry and children's ministry, specifically childhood development, I always kind of put a disability bend to everything that I write because that's the area that I'm in. And so I contacted you a couple months ago and said, “Hey, can we talk about how you make lessons accessible? Like how you do that at your church, how you do that for life, all the ways you do that.”
And when we talk, you're like, “Well yeah, it's universal design for learning principles!”
And I was like, this is brand new information to me and so I took lots of notes. I wrote my paper on universal design for learning, turned it in on Tuesday, and so this is all very fresh for me and so I’m excited that we get to sit down and talk about it in detail. And so why don't you like kind of summarize what universal design for learning is, and give us all so we're all kind of on the same page what we're talking about.
TM: Yeah, I do want to say about Universal Design for Learning, a lot of people will say, you know, like what are good teaching principles and whatnot? And a lot of people will answer, well, you need to know about learning styles, and if you actually delve into the research, learning styles are a myth and they are not good, scientifically-based teaching principles is just completely a myth, because what does work is Universal Design for Learning (UDL). And it does to kind of take into consideration like how children or students of any type are learning. But it's really about the ways you present information. But UDL is really just a framework. It's a lot of different stuff, but it can be applied to any domain.
So anything that you're doing, whether it's, you know, secular classroom teaching or it's within the church, it makes sense because it's a way to ensure that all learners can both access and participate in meaningful way with whatever learning opportunity it is. So that's what UDL is and it kind of gets that name from like, you may be familiar with Universal Design in architecture, and that's things like curb cuts on the sidewalk, they benefit people with mobility issues, but they also benefit moms with strollers. It benefits everybody!
Or it could be like, you know, larger sized dressing rooms; those are for people with wheelchairs but it also benefits moms with strollers, again. It's just ways that benefit everybody to make things more inclusive and accessible so that's where UDL kind of comes from.
SP: That’s really interesting, and we have a Biblical principle for it, right? Like with Luke 14, the parable of the great banquet, which we talk a lot about in disability ministry, but the master of the house has invited these people, they can't come. So, he sends the servant out, and then the servant invites the people with disabilities. And then he says, the master says, “Hey, you know, like who all can come?” And he says, “Well, there's still room for everybody!”.
So, we started with the people with disabilities and then there's still room for everybody to attend and so essentially when we kind of start with accessibility in mind, everybody benefits from that. So, the kids who need that accessibility and then the kids who may not necessarily need it but certainly benefit from these options for learning ways to apply and then ways to like express what they have learned. That's one of my favorite parts of it is the multiple ways of expressing what they've learned so it’s really exciting!
So, before we like jump into all the technical stuff, let me say that in the show notes we're going to have a link to a graphic organizer, which is a UDL principle too. And it's going to show people the three kind of buckets that we're going to talk through. So if you're gonna listen, you can click on the link and you can see a visual representation of what Tracy is going to talk through. So that way we're, even if we have learned now that auditory and kinesthetic and visual learners may not be as accurate as we thought they were, at least we know we're gonna present this material in different modalities is that the right word?
TM: Yes, you can use multiple senses to get information and retain it!
SP: That’s awesome! Alright, so walk us through kind of the three buckets of you UDL
TM: Yes so, there are three different categories of ways that we can think about how to modify, how to adapt and how to include everybody. And the first one, there are technical terms for it, but this one is about engagement in learning. And it's really about the why. You're giving kids a reason to come and participate in the activity or whatever the learning opportunity is, and you want to give them as many options as you can. Part of that is knowing your students, which I think is very important, like none of this matters if you don't know who your students are and you don't have a relationship with them, because everybody learns better in context of relationship.
So, you need to know your students, know what they like, what's interesting to them, what's going to peak their interest, and just make them want to learn something, and so that's kind of what engagement is in a nutshell. But then there's several things within engagement that you can modify or that you can present information about that help kids get involved. And that's things like giving lots of choice and autonomy and learning, right? I mean, if you think about yourself, would you rather have a choice and get to pick your own direction? Or do you just want to be told what to do all the time?
Yeah, we talked about making activities relevant. I know that can be kind of hard sometimes, but you know what your context is and what your kids are dealing with and what matters to them. So, use those things. And then another thing that I think is really important on the why of learning is varying the level of sensory stimulation that you give. And so, if you have activities that are busy and loud all the time, some of your kids are going to check out and they're not going to learn anything. But if you have activities that are just quiet and independent all the time you're also going to have kids that are very difficult to engage and are going to become behavior problems. If you have more than one kid in your family you probably have one of each of those!
SP: Yeah, that’s true
TM: Also, varying social demands as well, you have introverts and extroverts. So do you have some activities that allow for reflection and maybe some independence? Or do you always require like groupthink and group projects which are very stressful for some people, me included like I don't want to be in a group project if I can at all avoid it. So, you know, varying those social demands. And then I think another really important part of the engagement piece is making a safe and predictable classroom environment. Making sure kids know what's expected of them, what they're going to be participating in and some of that is like providing a consistent routine providing visual schedules. Also like creating expectations for work. You're in class right now, I’m in class right now, and it bugs me to no end when a professor presents something and then doesn't tell you what they expect! If you turn in your work and then you get it back and it's a terrible grade because they say that's not what you wanted. I'm like, well, why didn't you just tell me what you wanted? And I would have done it.
So, tell what your expectations are even if it's just super simple. If you're doing a Sunday school lesson say, “OK while we're sitting here, I expect you to have your mouth quiet and your ears listening,” you know even if it's just as simple as that, just letting kids know what those expectations are.
SP: That’s super helpful. I was thinking through as I was writing, I thought about the the words invitation and expectation. So like, let's give them an invitation to what we want them to participate in and then show them the expectations that we have during that time. And so I kept kind of just thinking through scenarios in a regular children's ministry classroom. What is the invitation and what is the expectation? Because some children's ministries are sensory overload, right? Like all the kids are in the same room and they're jumping in, they're dancing and there's lights and like some kids love that and Tracy and I, as little kids didn’t, probably, and we still wouldn’t!
TM: Please don’t make we walk into a loud room with lots of people!
SP: Yeah, sometimes I help in our two and three-year old class and I'm like whoa, like I can do it occasionally, but it is kind of sensory overload and not even like just from the kids at sensory overload but even like in the classroom itself.
TM: I teach my threes and Pre-K group large group sometimes and it's very well managed, but I like to say that's because I'm a good teacher but it's not. It's because I have sensory needs and I need it to be quiet.
SP: And I do think sometimes the classroom does take on, like when I taught high school English and I'm an introvert, I hate group work like I so very rarely assigned group work. But there were kids who enjoyed that, and I if I were to go back and do it again, I would at least provide options for that, you know and have a better balance.
TM: And when you're grouping up people too, if you can do the grouping as a teacher, I think that's also takes the social pressure off of trying to find a good group to work with or you know, getting stuck with somebody that it doesn't work very well with. So the more like you as a teacher can help with grouping, if you're going to do a grouping situation, I think it's better. Especially when you have kids with disabilities in your group, and in your classroom, who maybe aren't able to get themselves in a group. If you can facilitate that connection yourself then the better off everybody is going to be.
SP: Yeah, that makes sense! Okay so the first one is provide multiple means of engagement, now take us through the second one!
TM: So the second one is called providing multiple means of representation, which I don't really like the way these are, are are named because like, what does that even mean? This one I think is really a lot of the crux of UDL because it's presenting your information. This is what you're doing as a teacher, presenting it in multiple different ways. And this is kind of like the learning styles thing, but it's presenting information.
I like to ask really, how many senses have you engaged? And that helps me, like when I'm writing curriculum or when I'm teaching. That helps me just think about, OK, you know all the different kids in my class that probably hits all their different learning styles, basically, but, you know, thinking about the senses. So they've heard you say something, but can they also see, what you're trying to say, like providing a visual aid of some sort, whether it's the word itself if you have readers or a picture if you have pre readers. Something like that. And then can they tie a motion with both the verbal word and the visual with that? So now you've got 3 senses involved.
Can they say something out loud at the same time and just the more that you can engage their whole brain? The better off, the more chances of retention you're gonna have, and there's like a whole field of brain science that can tell you all about that.
But engaging all the senses, that's like the biggest portion of multiple means of representation. But another way I think that's important is providing choices in how kids participate and how they respond. So, you know, giving them an opportunity to respond individually or giving them an opportunity to respond, maybe to a peer or, you know, have a peer-to-peer conversation, something like that. Or maybe they want to write something down, or maybe they need to tell you something one-on-one and not in front of the group. Just, you know, think about different ways to respond to information.
I also like to use music a lot of times, that's really helpful. And then like reflection, I like to journal. But a lot of people hate journaling. But I love that as an introvert, please let me respond by myself, you know, so that's another way. And then also, how can you as a teacher, just keep highlighting what kids are supposed to be learning? Because they forget, we all get lost in the details. But the more you can keep, like your learning objective, or you know the main life point for the day, or you know whatever you're supposed to be doing, the more it helps kids know what the main thing is. Just keep coming back to that so that they can make those connections in their brain and it'll stick. The more you repeat something the more it’ll stick.
SP: Yeah, I love that. In the VBS curriculum, one of the lessons is Daniel and his friends. And so let's just, like, talk through that because like if you're a Sunday school teacher and you're teaching Daniel and his friends and how Daniel and his friends said, we're not gonna eat what the king is providing, we're going to eat what God says is clean. They have this testing period and then they came back and they were healthier and stronger than people who had eaten meat and everything.
I think that's a really good lesson because there's so many senses you can incorporate, right? You could bring in fruit and vegetables and say let's eat the food that Daniel and his friends ate! But then I also really like the application of it to say, would you stand up for what you believe? There's gonna be times, even as a young kid, you know, like, there's times where you may have peer pressure to make you do something that, you know God has told you not to do. So how do you respond?
TM: That’s a good way to like think about how you know your students like. What are they facing? And and bringing that in, that's a really good opportunity to help them make that connection. Is it, you know, like, do you listen to the same kind of music? Do you look at the same kind of things online? Do you play the same kind of games that kids, other kids do? Do you, you know, your words, are they the same kind of words that your friends are using or? You know how are Christians called to live differently that's a great lesson to know that those things.
SP: I just thought this and of course you do it to every lesson but that was just a easy example to say here are some out of the box things and then I really like the point where you were talking about different ways to respond. Because I taught high school different ways to respond because I taught high school, I kind of got, you know, raise your hand, answer the question. But then when I was teaching Elementary Sunday school, I was like “Ohh that it doesn't work the same here!” Like I may call on the kid and his answer is so out there that it distracts the whole class, you know?
And so I saw something on Instagram, where it was like task and ask. And I thought that's kind of a clever way to represent what you're saying, like what different ways can they respond? Can we match that with how they respond because the examples they were giving was everybody give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Or like I've seen I haven't used them, but I've seen those buttons where it's like a pre-recorded answer and they get to pick like even if one button says “yes,” that's fun. I think that would be fun. Or stand up, sit down.
TM: Yes, in preschool a lot, I I love the thumbs up and thumbs down because it's it's low risk and even my really timid. Little 3-year-olds who aren't comfortable yet, they'll still do a thumbs up or thumbs down so you know they're listening and then group answering. You know, like there's when you give a group response, not everybody's going to respond. But if you do something active like I like on one side of the room is yes and one side of the room is no. So you have to go, you know, move with the group and even if you don't know the right answer, you're probably gonna go with the group and so it's very low risk. But it's also very engaging because you know if you're moving to yes or no and that's a great way to give a a group response answer.
SP: Yeah, that's good. Even when I went up to the church last night when they were doing their Wednesday night activities, and they did that like there was one answer on one wall and another answer on another wall and like I think it was agree or disagree and they all moved to either agree or disagree.
TM: In Pre-K probably about a month or so ago, we did truth or trash. It just kind of happened this way. But I had one side was yes, and then the other side was by the trash can, and so that was like the false answer, you know. So, I would say a statement and then say is that truth or is that trash? And they thought it was hilarious because they're like, “Oh, that's trash!” But it was, it helped them just internalize what I was asking, think through it and then they had to move to the right answer. It was fun.
SP: Yeah, that is fun! All right, so multiple means of representation, that's really a fun thing to think through. We could talk, I mean, we could use any Bible story and talk through all kinds of different ways or that. So but alright, what's the third one?
TM: So the third one… Let me see what the real is really called providing multiple means of action and expression, it’s really long but like I said, I don't really love those names. But this one is about the how of learning and this is giving kids opportunities to express their understanding, which everybody expresses their understanding in a different way. If you ask the same question of five different people, you're going to get 5 different answers. They may be all correct, but they're gonna sound different.
This is like giving kids the opportunity to move, to express their understanding and letting kids express themselves in a variety of ways. Sometimes this is older or easier with older kids, like you know, letting them have some independent time to work or giving them group opportunity. Another thing is giving kids a way to manage their own learning and let them know what the learning objective is, what your goals and expectations are, but then helping them figure out how to get to those goals on their own when they may come up with something completely different than what I would have as a teacher. And then also this is really about; do kids know what they're supposed to be learning, and do they know how to learn it? And that is giving kids lots of ways to take notes, maybe, or just different ways to catch the information that you're giving them, or highlight the information that you're giving them and just helping them get from point A to point B. That's really what that multiple means of action and expression is; physical action, different ways to express and communicate, and those executive functioning skills.
SP: That’s really good, like your example on even note taking. Because I went to a conference a few weeks ago and some people were taking notes like you do. But then some people took out their phones and took a picture of the slide that was up. And so I was like, that's multiple ways that they're taking this information because they're hearing it, they're reading it, there's some of them that are writing and I was like that's really interesting.
TM: Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that as an example but that’s really good. Because I am a writer, like for me I wanna write something down, even now, like if I wanna l take notes in the class that I’m taking. I actually still write notes rather than type them out just because it helps me remember, but some people would rather just you know snap a picture and read through that picture again later and that works for them.
SP: I took a taking a statistics class this semester and I was the only one handwriting notes because the rest of them had there laptops, and I'm the oldest in the class, you know, so I'm used to it, but statistics is really hard and I was like, how can I make this stick? And I just felt like writing it out would have helped me better than typing it. And even like for me when I'm writing things out, it's even where on the page I'm writing it or arrows…or…which you can't really do when you're just typing.
TM: Yeah, when I write something out, I can remember “Ohh, yeah, you know,” if I'm taking a test or something. “Like that's on this page and it's at the top left corner!” I know how what it is. It’s just really helpful for me.
SP: And I like the idea of this section talking about those executive function skills and how kids can grow in that and how sometimes they're just, you just kind of put markers to say, like, I think if when you write a paper, like my son, senior in high school, and so paper writing is a bigger deal now because I'm like, hey I'm not going to be in college with you, I mean, you can send me your papers, but it's going to be the same.
So I appreciate when his teacher says first you're going to turn in an outline, then you're going to turn in a rough draft, then you're going to turn in the final draft. Because I just feel like those are, that will be self-paced when it needs to like when he's in college it's like “hey you've got a paper due,” but now the teachers are helping him think through things each section it kind of those executive function checks. Like, make sure you're progressing the way you need to and it's helping them get in the pattern of thinking through through it that way.
TM: Yeah like even my third-grader, brings home little visual organizers, before he has to turn in a bigger project or something. And it has like “what's the objective,” “what the main point?” “OK, what's 3 supporting facts about this project?” And he has to write those out. Then he has to go find a few more facts to write underneath that.
And I really like how they're working on those executive functioning and organizing skills. Because Lord knows he needs it, but we all need it. I like how it helps him move toward that goal at his pace.
SP: And like you said, a lot of this comes back to knowing the students and knowing what they need and what their personalities and strengths and all of that like, and that's the way they're designed. I think what's unique about those of us with a Christian worldview is, we see the the marks of their good, their good design from a loving Creator. And so when we talk about even introvert and extrovert, God designed us with those qualities for a purpose and we glorify Him when we express ourselves, you know, in these very unique ways.
TM: We don’t have to make an introvert fit into an extroverted hole or vice versa. Let's use the strings that the Lord blessed them with for a reason and capitalize on those and that will just help the child make better faith connections.
SP: Yeah because we are sharing the most important message they’ll ever hear, and so let’s do it in every single way possible. Before you and I hit record, we were talking through Acts 8 because as I was reading I thought this is kind of a great example of Universal Design for Learning.
I'll remind everybody, like we're looking specifically at the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunich. And so Philip gets called to where the Ethiopian eunuch is and he's leaving Jerusalem and it said he had left the temple and so and he's sitting and reading scripture. And so Philip, this is verse 30, It says Philip ran to him. I love that because he sees him and the Holy Spirit says go talk to him and Phillip runs to him and he says, “Do you understand what you're reading?”
And then the Ethiopian eunuch says, “How can I unless someone guides me?” And then, Phillip starts with where he is, it's a passage from Isaiah that he's reading. And so it says. Verse 35, “Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.”
So he starts with the knowledge he has, right? He's got this knowledge of Isaiah. He doesn't fully understand what it means because it's a prophecy about the one to come, who is Jesus. So Phillip fills him in on the whole story. So he has read it, now he's hearing it, and, then you, pointed it out, and then there's action because he asked if he can get baptized. And so we see all of these different methods just in this kind of short passage in Scripture.
TM: I mean, he even asked an opening question. He didn't like run up to and say, “Hey do you know XYZ?” He said “Do you understand what you're reading?” And I think that was just a way of gauging his strength and gauging where he was so he could move on from there and that's such a good example.
SP: Isn’t it fun? We know this, like we know every truth is ultimately from God, but when it all comes together in this way, like, man, this, this is it. It's really, it's really cool.
So, that's an exciting way to kind of apply all of this and just think through. We have the good news, we have the full story of Jesus, and let's make sure we are communicating that to the kids and teens and adults in our ministries in as many ways as possible so that they understand it. I think of even with my classes, and I know we're mostly talking about inclusive classrooms.
But even with my son James, who doesn't have the verbal ability to like, ever confirm faith in Jesus. But still, I can be faithful to present Jesus to him in as many ways as possible. So I'm singing over him. I have these like short phrases that I say and just, even if it's “Jesus loves you,” every day, he hears it and I don't fully understand, I mean I won't know how he understands it, but I at least want to be faithful to teaching him.
TM: Absolutely, yes. I think it's so important as Christians to be an example to the world of how good of a teacher we can be. And if we know these principles that yes, they're scientific based, but we can also see them in the Bible. If we know these things, then we have to use them. And be responsible to just be the best teachers that we can be. Because like you said we have the good news the best message the most important message and so we need to be faithful to teach that in really important ways.
SP: Yeah that's awesome, that’s exciting. Thanks for chatting with me today.
TM: Loved to.
SP: And I’m glad we could let all of our other friends hang out with us for a few minutes today. Whenever I have a question or something, I'm like, I bet other people have this question. I bet I'm not the only one! And so let me find an expert, ask all the questions and then invite other friends in to listen. So, it's been a good time.
Is there anything that I didn't ask that you want to make sure you get in, or do you think we covered it all?
TM: I think we did a pretty good job. But I think my main take away for like, if you don't hear anything else, I think there's two things that I would just really reiterate #1, know your kids and know what their strengths are and what interests them and build a relationship with them. That's probably one of the most important things. And then. I forgot what I was going to say for #2 Probably just, if you don't know how to do something, find somebody that does, because there's probably is somebody out there that can help you or answer that question for you. And just find somebody to help.
SP: Yeah, that's what I did when I was teaching Sunday school I looked in the back to see what recommendations were back there, because I need to be able to apply this in more than one way. And so that's really helpful. The good news is lots of curriculum designers are doing some of the hard work for us. So our big thing is to get to know the kids and then they're supplying the ways that we can meet their needs.
TM: And I'm really excited about some things that are going on with Lifeway right now, they’re desire to reach more kids with disabilities and be more inclusive in everything that they offer so I’m excited about what's coming out in the coming years.
SP: Yeah, me too. I know. I think this is an exciting time to be part of an inclusion movement, and accessibility. Because I think like our time together here is super helpful for children's ministers and preschool ministers and family ministers, even if it's not disability specific even, but everybody is doing inclusion now. So let's make sure that we're using the best practices to meet the needs of our kids.
And so, if you enjoyed this conversation that I had with Tracy today, that happens at Disability & the Church. There's all kinds of conversations like these, where we're learning from experts. You can ask questions, you can sit by somebody at lunch that you just want to pick their brain a little bit. It's an awesome time for us to all be together and all be able to have the same passion, and to have these different ministries and these different experiences together, and bring all that together and learn from it. So, make sure that you visit keyministry.org/datc2024 and you can still register!! There's a GROUP RATE if you want to register your whole team to come. I would really love to see you there. Thanks for listening thanks so much for your time today, Tracy!
TM: Thank you for the invitation!
SP: Yeah! Alright have a great week friends!
