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Creating an Under 16's Support Circle
TheMix
Posts: 3,122 Boards Guru
Hey everyone!
In the group chat break thread, we mentioned running a workshop to get your help in building an Under 16's Support Circle. We didn't quite get around to organising this for break week, but we still want to run it.
What's the idea?
We want to create a space primarily for Under 16's. Some work we've done in the past has shown us that Support Circle is a particularly useful format for that age group, so we're going to use that framework and create an Under 16's Support Circle.
What do you need me to do?
We need the help of people under 16 to create this space.
We want to know how we can tailor the Support Circle environment specifically to that age group, and what might need to be different to usual Support Circles. Those differences might be to do with how the space is moderated, the structure and timings, when they're scheduled, or whatever else you can think of that could make the session work more for our younger members.
We're hoping to run a workshop chat to hear your ideas and see what we can come up with.
If you're under 16 and you would like to feed into this project, let us know and send us a PM with your general availability
Thanks folks, and feel free to ask any questions below.
Mike & the team
1
Comments
This is my availability:
Tomorrow: Evening
Monday: Evening
Tuesday: Morning or evening
Wednesday: Evening
Thursday: All day
Friday: N/A
Saturday: All day
Sunday: Evening
"The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
"I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous
Timing: 7:30pm-9:30pm so more under 16's can get support
Day of the week: Thursday
Structure: 6 support places (15 minutes each+15 minutes opening round+15 minutes closing round) and 4 additional listener places.
"The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
"I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous
"The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
"I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous
I think this is a fantastic idea. When I was younger I was always worried that I would be judged for my age due to beind the youngest around in chat. I feel like a space like this would help younger people to feel more conmfortable using chat.
I don’t think there’ll ever be a time or day that suits everyone, I was always awake late at 13 so the normal timings always suited me but I understand that some young people go to bed earlier than this so perhaps a slightly earlier timing like 7.30-9pm or something like that (idk though). As for day, personally I was always busier at the weekend so back in the day when the under 16s support chats were a thing, I often couldn’t go on a Saturday because I was busy with family stuff. So perhaps a weekday such as a Monday or a Thursday would work better.
I think the structure of ordinary support circles would work well here too. I also think it requires a friendly but firm approach to moderation (similar to ordinary support chat).
I think this is a fab idea though