Religious Education
Religious Education Program
The CUUF Religious Education program includes many activities to nurture the spiritual development of the fellowship’s youth. Youth prepare and perform an annual pageant at the December Holiday Service, a puppet show (or similar) at the Spring Easter Service, and a song at the All-Music Service in May. From January to March, youth divide into age groups during services, where they receive religious education from a variety of curricula. Nursery staff also provide childcare to infants and toddlers during services.
Religious Education also supports a team of staff and volunteers in providing the Our Whole Lives (OWL) curricula for lifespan sexuality education. Additional religious education programming can include Building Bridges for education on world religions, developing a youth-led service for CUUF, other youth service projects, and fora for CUUF families to share and discuss religious education topics.
As the Director of Religious Education, it is my aim to support the fellowship in their religious education goals. To assess the fellowship’s goals and needs, I use a variety of tools, from online surveys to casual conversations. I would love to hear everyone’s ideas, hopes, and feedback. If you have any questions about Religious Education at CUUF or want to discuss ways that you can get involved, please reach out to me at meganst@chequamegonuuf.org.
Meghan Salmon-Tumas
Director of Religious Education, CUUF
Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Safe Congregations and Background Check Policy for Religious Education Staff and Volunteers
- The Chequamegon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship (CUUF) recognizes the importance of fostering and creating communities where everyone, especially our most vulnerable populations such as children and youth, are protected. We seek to preserve that spirit of welcome, respect and trust in balance with our concern for the safety of our children, applying the best practices from the Unitarian Universalist Association to any policies or guidelines we adopt.
- Religious education (RE) classes will be conducted following best practices from the Safe Congregations handbook: two adults or attendants will be present and classes will be conducted in open spaces or with doors open.
- The CUUF Board will conduct a background check on all staff hired to work with RE, such as the Director(s) of Religious Education. The RE director(s) will conduct a background check on all RE volunteers who are hired to work with the youth. Background checks will be repeated once every five years.
- RE director(s) will be mandatory reporters and will attend an annual training. RE volunteers will be provided an incident report form for accidents, injuries, medical situations, student behavioral incidents, or other concerns and will turn this into the RE director(s).
- Every employee and every volunteer who comes in contact with children and youth will receive a copy of the safe congregation policy, ethics policy (under development), and sexual harassment policy (under development).
RE Registration Form
Hello CUUF RE families!
Please complete the form linked below for all children in your family who may participate in RE at any time this year, as well as all primary caregivers.
Please note that the form requests your permission for us to run a routine volunteer background check for any adults who may want to help or participate in events or programs involving CUUF youth. This *does not* require any extra information or commitment on your part, but it will help us maintain compliance with Safe Congregations and allow parent volunteers to step in and out more easily as their time allows.