Welcome to the Website of the International Association for Children's Spirituality
The International Association for Children’s Spirituality seeks to promote and support research and practice in relation to children’s spirituality within education and wider contexts of children’s care and wellbeing.
The Association understands spirituality broadly and inclusively as having relation to the religious and beyond the religious. We encourage holistic approaches to children’s spirituality and personal development across a variety of disciplines, professions, organisations and communities.
Our methods of working are based on a set of values and aims which can be read here.
The IACS supports the International Conferences on Children’s Spirituality and is planning a Symposium in Liverpool UK in July 2021.
IACS Symposium 2020
On 28-30 July 2020, our International Children’s Spirituality Symposium did not take place in the UK at Liverpool Hope University due to the global COVID-19 virus.Our Annual General Meeting took place virtually on Zoom on July 29th, 2020, and we hope to conduct a conference in 2021. Information will be provided as it becomes available and look forward to seeing you soon!
IACS Conference 2018
The 16th International Conference on Children’s Spirituality – Questioning relationships between children’s spirituality and traditions – hosted by Prof. Elaine Champagne, took place at Laval University, Québec city, Canada, from Tuesday 24 July – Friday 27 July 2018. The conference interested practitioners and researchers coming from a diversity of disciplinary, cultural, and professional backgrounds who are concerned with the spiritual well-being and development of children and young adults, from 0 to 20 years old. You will find all relevant information for the conference by following this link: https://www.chaire-spiritualites.ulaval.ca/dialoguer-et-diffuser/colloques-et-congres-2/iacs-conference-2018/. We enjoyed seeing you in Quebec City in July 2018!
IACS Conference 2016
The 15th International Conference on Children’s Spirituality – Spirituality and the whole child: interdisciplinary approaches, hosted by Dr Kate Adams, took place at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln, from Tuesday 26 July – Friday 29 July 2016.
Over seventy participants from thirteen countries explored children’s spirituality from a range of perspectives. The conference provided a forum for those engaged in education, social work, health care, counselling, psychology, chaplaincy, practical theology, the arts, humanities and anthropology amongst others to share their latest research and practice. The conference explored the ways in which spirituality is conceived in and across cultures, and how more connections between different disciplines could be made to advance understanding of this important element of children’s lives.
International keynote speakers included:
- John (Jack) Miller, University of Toronto, Canada
Equinox Holistic Alternative School: an integrated approach to learning - Joyce Ann Mercer, PhD., LCSW, Professor of Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, Yale Divinity School, USA
Restorative Spirituality: hope for traumatized children - Jacqueline Watson, PhD., Visiting Fellow, University of Exeter and University of East Anglia, UK
Every Child Still Matters: interdisciplinary approaches to the spirituality of the child
Engaging with us
We now have an online presence in two areas: Facebook and Twitter.
If you are active on Facebook, please check out our page and ‘like’ it. The page is: https://www.facebook.com/associationforchildrensspirituality.
Our Twitter page is: https://twitter.com/ChildSpirit1. Our handle is ChildSpirit1! Feel free to tweet us and say hello.
Members’ area
The members area is a secure space in which members can suggest discussion topics, share ideas and invite others to participate in projects concerning children’s spirituality. Photographs and PowerPoint presentations of past conferences as well as all newsletters are available here.
Links
If you would like a link to your site from here please contact kate.posey@gmail.com.
- Centre for Paediatric Spiritual Care
- British Association for the Study of Spirituality
- Columbia University
- The Edinburgh International Centre for Spirituality and Peace – The EICSP runs spiritual events throughout the year.
- The Hong Kong Institute of Education: Centre for Religious and Spirituality Education
- Life, the universe and everything: spirituality in schools
- Save Childhood Movement
- Scotland’s Religious Observance Review Report
- Spirituality and Music Education
- UK Spirituality
The International Journal of Children's Spirituality
For 23 years, the IJCS was the journal of the IACS. Aiming to provide an international and multi-cultural forum for those involved in research and the development of children’s and young people’s spirituality the journal considers what is meant by ‘spirituality’ and its relevance for schooling and society.
The IACS is no longer formally associated with IJCS. Please see the journal page for more information about the IJCS.
Join the International Association for Children's Spirituality
Membership of the International Association for Children’s Spirituality is free for 2020 and runs from 1st January. Benefits include:
- access to an international network of scholars from different disciplines with interest and expertise in children’s spirituality;
- the chance to raise issues, discuss ideas or raise queries related to practice or plans and projects for future research, projects or publications with other members;
- the chance to post information about your research (actual or proposed), projects and consultancies on the website.
If you wish to join please visit our membership page.
Announcements
Dutch Children’s Spirituality Conference 2020
On January 24th 2020, a Dutch Children’s Spirituality Conference took place (‘Dag van de Kinderspiritualiteit’) in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Sixty people took part in this one-day conference on children and spirituality. This year’s theme was ‘Different Worlds’. The event was organised by Oblimon, in close co-operation with the HAN teacher training college (Arnhem & Nijmegen University of Applied Sciences). This year’s theme was ‘Different Worlds’. Spirituality is about connections people feel with that which transcends them, and an awareness of things that escape everyday perception. For children, these experiences can take forms that differ to those of adults. Also, for young children there isn’t a clear division between the ‘ordinary’ and the transcendent, the spiritual and the imaginary, like there is for most adults. In a way, children and adults live in different worlds. How can we take children’s experiences seriously, even when we may not understand them? And what can adults do to help children move into adulthood without losing their connections with the spiritual? Dr. Kate Adams introduced this theme in a talk, followed by group discussions and two rounds of six workshops. Most workshops were in Dutch, some bilingual.Contact us at info@oblimon.nl. Please see attached flyer for more information!
Marian de Souza has now stepped down as Chair of the Association. Kate Adams (UK) and Karen Marie-Yust (USA) have been voted in as co-chairs. The main benefit of this will be international coverage and collaboration, in this case between USA and UK.
It was also proposed and voted on that the role of communications secretary and web manager be merged into one role, to avoid overlap. All communications and website questions should be addressed to kate.posey@gmail.com.
Click on images to enlarge:
For membership issues please contact Karen-Marie Yust; for Website, Facebook, and communication matters issues please contact Katie Posey. All contact details can be found in ‘Contact us’.
The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) have always had a deep interest and engagement with education, drawing on their fundamental testimony that all have ‘that of God’ within them and therefore all children should be of equal value in education. Now, in conjunction with the University of Birmingham, Woodbrooke Study Centre is offering research degrees in this area of education, Quaker Values in Education. This research pathway is suitable for those interested in Quaker values in education: truth, justice, equality, simplicity, care, peace and sustainability and how these are, or can be, enacted in educational practices. Possible research methods include:
- action research to develop their own teaching or other educational roles
- ethnography to illuminate existing practice
- curriculum study and design to identify embedding values in learning and knowledge
For further information about part-time and full-time routes, fees, etc. please go to https://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/pages/research-degrees.html