Ten sessions for advocates, After session eight
Change is easier to see when we look back on purpose. This session gives each person a private then and now, and the group a chance to name what it will carry on.
75 minutes: The card 5, A short talk 10, Discussion 10, The activity 30, Private reflection 10, Closing 5, Five to spare 5.
Nothing here asks anyone to share something painful or to look well. Taking part silently is taking part, and passing is always allowed.
Looking back over hard weeks can bring a lot up. Words are optional, nobody explains their word, and anyone can step away for a moment.
Anger, fear and exhaustion are normal in this work, and so is grief for a future we hoped for. These sessions are no substitute for therapy. If these feelings weigh on you, you do not have to carry them alone: turn to someone you trust, such as a friend, a colleague, a doctor or a counsellor. If anyone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.
If someone is struggling, follow the care route your group agreed in its first session. This is not yours to carry alone.
The term, looking back, in its adult wording
This is our last session together. Take a breath and think back to the first time this group met.
Finish three sentences silently: something you came through, something that surprised you and something you are ready to leave here.
Let the difficult weeks belong in the reflection too. Getting through them counts alongside anything you could put in a report.
If you would like to, offer the group one word from your reflection before we close.
Anyone can pass, and quiet is taking part.
Watch for anyone who goes very still, tearful or far away. Do not single them out. Offer a break, or speak to them quietly afterwards.
Change is easier to see when we look back on purpose. This session gives each person a private then and now, and the group a chance to name what it will carry on.
Kolb described learning from experience as a cycle of doing, reflecting, making sense and trying again. The weekly loop of these sessions follows that shape. (Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.)
Burnout among people working for social change is often reported, and it is linked to the culture of the groups they work in as well as to the work itself. Looking after each other is part of the work. (Chen, C. W., and Gorski, P. C. (2015). Burnout in social justice and human rights activists: Symptoms, causes and implications. Journal of Human Rights Practice, 7(3), 366 to 390.)
A private then and now is a record for you alone. It measures nothing about the sessions, and it says nothing about who did well or badly.
What has changed in how you do this work, even a little?
What would you tell the next group before their first session?
Questions in pairs or small groups. Anyone can pass.
Online. Give fifteen quiet minutes, cameras optional, for each person to retake the private reflection and read their own then and now. In breakouts of three, share one thing you will keep practising, if you want to. Back together, collect suggestions for the next group in a shared document, unsigned.
In a room. The same, with a sheet on the wall for unsigned suggestions.
The harvest. Two ways a group can gather what it learned together. The group's host, or whoever plans its evaluation, chooses one of them or neither.
Ripple effects mapping, about 30 min. Draw a map outward from the sessions together: what each person tried, what changed in their own work, and what changed for other people after that. Anyone can add to the map, and nobody has to. (Chazdon, S., Emery, M., Hansen, D., Higgins, L., and Sero, R. (Eds.) (2017). A field guide to ripple effects mapping. University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing.)
Most significant change stories, about 30 min. In threes, anyone who wants to tells the one change from these weeks that matters most to them, and why. Anyone who wants to may offer a story to keep, with their permission. No story is ranked above another. (Davies, R., and Dart, J. (2005). The 'Most Significant Change' (MSC) technique: a guide to its use.)
Then and now. Before the harvest, each person reads their own then and now from "Where I am now", alone. It stays theirs, and nobody asks what it says.
Everything said in the harvest is said by choice. Leave out names and details of anyone else.
If your group runs its own evaluation after these sessions, your host shares the link to it. It sits outside this site, with its own consent, and nothing here feeds it.
Where the answers go. Your then and now stays on your own device and nobody else sees it. If your group runs an evaluation, it is separate, with its own consent, and its answers go wherever the group's host has said.
Try it this week. Choose one practice from these sessions and put it somewhere in your week where it will meet you.
Quiet time. Nobody shares what they write.
Before you try it, the field log asks:
What matters most to me in this conversation?
What am I assuming about them?
What will I do when I notice the first sign of stress?
Carrying it forward, in its adult wording
These are our last few minutes together, so look back and find one moment from these sessions you are glad happened, however small.
Choose one thing you would like to carry into your work from here, such as a practice, a question or words that stayed with you.
Anyone who wants to can finish the sentence "I am taking... with me", aloud or in the chat, while the rest of us listen. Passing is always fine.
The difficult and unfinished parts can travel with you too. There is no need to resolve them before we close.
Thank you for the time we have spent together. I hope what comes next makes room for the rest you need.
For your peer circle. What will you keep doing, and who could remind you, kindly, when it slips?
Anyone can pass, and quiet is taking part.
Watch for anyone who goes very still, tearful or far away. Do not single them out. Offer a break, or speak to them quietly afterwards.
Because sessions run over, and that is fine.
Practices to try at home: Raise a Glass to It, Stars That Held You.
https://rfweducators.netlify.app/advocates/session-9/
Recipes for Wellbeing. Free to use and adapt under CC BY-NC 4.0.