Circle of Friends

Circles of Friends Case Study

Following a solution focused liaison group meeting at Loretta’s school (requested by her Mum), I agreed to set up a Circle of Friends with Loretta’s class. Loretta was complaining of being bullied, was very unhappy and reluctant to leave her home out of school time. If she did, her mother was under strict instructions to phone after a very short time and request that she return home. I spoke to Loretta in school and she agreed I should go ahead and speak to her class.

I was seeking to find positive support for Loretta from among her peer group in order to increase her emotional well-being and social confidence, reduce her social isolation and improve her interpersonal skills. The first step was, through eliciting the empathy of her class-mates, to create for her a sense of belonging within her class group. The Circle of Friends approach seemed the ideal way to achieve these outcomes.
I provided the class teacher with information about the approach and arranged a suitable time to talk to her class for about an hour. I asked for the classroom to be arranged as for circle time.

I asked for a flipchart and markers to be available and for the class teacher to assist by recording pupil comments on the flip chart. I also requested that pupils should wear name badges which I supplied. Lastly, voting slips needed to be available.
On the day, this is what I did:

• I told the class I was interested in friendships and that I was there to talk about someone who was having a hard time – Loretta.
• I said it was unusual to be talking about someone behind their back, but that I had Loretta’s permission.
• Group rules and confidentiality were stressed.
• I asked them to tell me all positive the things about Loretta they could think of. The teacher recorded these on the flipchart.
• Then I asked about the more difficult things about Loretta. These were also recorded.
• We then moved on to considering the “circles” (diagram attached to the right).
• The children were first of all asked to give lots of examples of the people who would fit into the different circles.
• Then circles two and three (the orange and blue circles shown) were covered up and the pupils were asked to imagine how they would feel if these circles were empty for them. This produced along list of feelings words such as lonely, left out, miserable, upset, jealous, unwanted, and angry. The pupils were beginning to have a clear idea of what it meant to be isolated.
• Next they were asked, “If you felt that way, how would you behave?” This question, interestingly, produced a list of many of the ways Loretta behaved – do stupid things, stay inside, be aggressive, not eat, be scared to go out, argue, take out your feelings on others, upset your family, ignore everyone, not work in class, cry…
• The children were then asked, “If you felt and acted like that, how could the other children in your class help you to feel and behave better?” This produced a list of ideas for action - try and be a friend, lend her things, ask her to join in, give her a compliment, play with her, stand up for her, try and cheer her up, invite her to your house, invite her to your party …
• Finally, the pupils were reminded that I was there to ask for their help and that they had already been really helpful with all their great ideas. They were each given a small slip of paper and asked to write their name on it. They were then told that I was looking for volunteers to be a circle of friends for Loretta. They were told that only six to eight would be chosen but that they could all help in the ways they had suggested. They were asked to write a “yes” or “no” on their slip, depending on whether or not they wanted to volunteer. They were all thanked for their help.
• 24 of the 26 pupils in the class volunteered, and I encouraged the class teacher to choose a mix of pupils to be in the circle, including some who might be isolated themselves. This done we proceeded to the first meeting of the circle.
• Loretta joined us and the positive things said about her by her peers were fed back. The other pupils all explained why they had volunteered and a name was chosen for the group. After much deliberation “Loretta’s Friends” was fixed on. Times for subsequent meetings were arranged and the pupils were reminded that they were helping but that the adults were still responsible for Loretta in school. The group was to continue until the end of session – eight weeks – and to meet weekly with the teacher to discuss successes and to use a problem-solving approach to deal with difficulties.

I liked this piece of work because it utilised the positive power of a much maligned group – the peer group. Eliciting the empathy of peers was much easier than I expected and their ideas were much better than I might have hoped for. The most challenging aspect of the work was the feeling of risk taking. The class teacher was very concerned that no-one would volunteer and although I was certain there would be volunteers; the process did feel very risky at first.

This is a very powerful approach and it really works! Loretta was much happier and having overnights with friends within a fortnight. Her Mum was delighted and Loretta was able to look ahead positively to the move to secondary school. The class teacher was very impressed with her own pupils’ contributions, especially some who did not usually shine in class and this affected her selection of circle members. My key message would be: Do not attempt to dilute this approach to make it feel less risky. In my experience, pupils are very empathetic and they almost all volunteer every time! It’s very empowering for an isolated child to be told that most of her class wanted to be in her circle.