Members of welfare committees will better understand how welfare specialists can help members achieve self-reliance.
(Note: Remind participants not to disclose confidential information as they discuss this topic.)
Essentials of Welfare videocassette (53045) or In the Service of Your God DVD (54645)
Invite a participant to read the following statement:
“The stake presidency [or bishopric] . . . may call welfare specialists to assist the stake [or ward] welfare committee as needed. These specialists should be stake [or ward] members who can assist other members in such things as finding employment, improving nutrition and sanitation, storing food, obtaining health care, improving literacy, managing finances, and helping meet other welfare needs” (Church Handbook of Instructions, Book 2: Priesthood and Auxiliary Leaders [1998], 259; see also page 260).
Invite participants to share examples they have seen of ward or stake welfare specialists successfully fulfilling these responsibilities.
Invite a participant to read the following scripture, and discuss how it applies to a ward or stake’s welfare needs:
“If any man among you be strong in the Spirit, let him take with him him that is weak, that he may be edified in all meekness, that he may become strong also” (D&C 84:106).
Help participants understand the following points, and discuss them as needed:
1. “The Lord’s storehouse includes the time, talents, skills, compassion, consecrated material, and financial means of faithful Church members. These resources are available to the bishop in assisting those in need” (Thomas S. Monson, “Guiding Principles of Personal and Family Welfare,” Ensign, Sept. 1986, 5). Welfare specialists use their talents and skills to help others resolve their welfare challenges and become self-reliant.
Ask participants: What talents or skills should a welfare specialist have?
2. If ward welfare committees cannot identify individuals in the ward with the needed skills to serve as welfare specialists, they can ask for assistance from stake welfare specialists.
3. Welfare specialists should become familiar with the principles and techniques of helping others plan for and achieve self-reliance (see lesson Helping Other Become More Self-Reliant).
4. Welfare specialists can help needy members gain access to resources in the community and, through the bishop, to the services and commodities of Church welfare operations.
5. Because most stakes and wards have members who need help to find jobs or improve their employment, each should have a stake or ward employment specialist. Many employment specialists also have the skills to help with other kinds of needs.
Ask participants to share examples of how employment specialists have helped unemployed or underemployed members of their ward or stake.
Show the video segment about compassionate service from “Applying Welfare Principles in Our Lives” (part of the videocassette Essentials of Welfare or the DVD In the Service of Your God ), if available. Ask participants: What steps did the neighbors take to help the needy family? Point out that welfare specialists can take essentially these same steps to help ward or stake members in need.
Read the list of possible needs below, and ask participants to think of a person or couple in their ward or stake who could be called as a welfare specialist to help in each situation:
Ask participants:
In what ways could you use welfare specialists to help the needy members in these situations become more self-reliant? What kind of instructions would you give welfare specialists about these situations? (Use the information found in lesson Helping Other Become More Self-Reliant to help guide this discussion.)
How could the ward or stake welfare committee support the efforts of the specialist? (Answers may include: helping identify other people and resources in the ward or stake that could be used to help; coordinating the efforts of the home and visiting teachers with those of the specialists; teaching the doctrines, principles, and skills related to welfare and self-reliance in Sunday and other Church meetings.)
To whom would the specialist report? (The bishop and stake president, and if appropriate, the ward or stake welfare committee)
Challenge the participants to make plans in their next welfare committee meeting to call and effectively use welfare specialists to help those who are in need.
Testify of the value of assistance from welfare specialists in caring for the poor and needy and helping others become self-reliant.