What is the goal of SPRED?
The goal of SPRED is to assist people in parish churches to integrate persons with developmental disabilities into parish life and worship through the process of education in faith.
What means do we use to reach our goal?
- We raise awareness in our local churches of the needs of developmentally disabled people. We show them how SPRED can assist them in responding to their needs.
- We provide materials for catechesis.
- We provide opportunities for observation as a learning tool and for helping parish leaders, families, prospective volunteers and others.
- We provide training courses. Training can be taken at different levels; initial, on-going. leadership, area co-ordination.
- We provide a monthly publication, a reflection on the experience of ministry in SPRED.
- We support volunteers with annual on-going training.
- We support the process of integration into the parish community.
- We support those in leadership roles with specialized training on an on-going basis.
- We support all catechists with an annual reflection paper to help deepen the experience of catechesis.
- The SPRED staff is involved in on-going research, participating in international SPRED Conferences every third year.
What do we ask of each parish?
- We ask each parish to take responsibility for the religious development of its members with disabilities.
- We ask each parish priest/priests in a deanery to offer a place where the SPRED group can meet that is conducive to the process of catechesis.
- We raise awareness that the parish community is responsible for finding volunteers to welcome its developmentally disabled members.
- We raise awareness that developmentally disabled people can be fruitfully involved in other groups in the parish such as the choir, flower arrangement, social group.