As the church moves past Palm Sunday into Passion Week, Nurturing Care discovered a church finding a way to bridge anticipation in Palm Sunday to celebration on Easter Sunday… or any Sunday.

In the last month Tiffany Solum with Living Hope Church reported the following information: “Our sensory items arrived this past month! We have been busy unboxing and organizing them into a temporary storage space as we finalize a permanent place for storage and display of our worship backpacks. So far, we have utilized the scarves and egg shakers the most, engaging children during our musical worship time and allowing them to participate in additional ways.”

One Sunday we had a child experiencing dysregulation. In the past, we’ve experienced behavior escalation to the point of needing to page the parent for support. Utilizing a couple new fidgets and a wiggle sensory seat, we were able to keep this student in the classroom, successfully reset, and rejoin the class activities. It was a big win for our team and we are so thankful to have more resources at our disposal!

We have had several volunteers comment about the impact of egg shakers and fabric scarves. They have noticed an increase in engagement classroom wide. It’s been great to see our autistic friends and their peers able to worship alongside each other in the same way!”

This Sunday, replacing Palms with scarves and egg shakers may be a brand new way to say “He is Risen!” with our neurodiverse children.