about teen talking circles

girl's circles & guy's circles

Teen Circles are designed to take place 1 day per week after school for 2 – 2½ hours, 9 months per (school) year, with 3 months off during the summer months and holidays. Circles usually are no more than 11 participants and 2 adult facilitators. Usually, when a young person joins circle they stay in it for years. As youth graduate from high school and leave circle, new participants join. We accommodate overflow by starting a new circle with two more facilitators. They can be formed in any kind of setting and work for all kinds of groups. For the past 10 years, our local circles on Bainbridge Island take place in a Waldorf schoolroom, located in an Episcopal Church. However, circles are happening in diverse spaces all over the world and conform to the needs of individual facilitators and groups of youth.

Our original design for Girl's Circle was established on Bainbridge Island, Washington in March 1993, and for 2 years was documented for inclusion in our first book, Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun, published in 1997 by New Society Publishers. Since then our local Girl’s Circles, Guy’s Circles and GenderTalks Circles have continued each year, and we have trained hundreds of adults to start and lead circles in their communities, schools, and institutions.

Teen Talking Circles, both as an organization, and the within the groups we lead locally on Bainbridge Island, emphasizes the value of relationship, communication, self-expression, questioning, learning, revelation, developing judgment and maturity, assertiveness, self-awareness, compassion, empathy, connectedness, respect, health and well-being in body, mind, and spirit, consciousness and consciousness raising, listening, integrity, acceptance of self and others, truth, emotion, love, touch, connection, and physical expression.

facilitator training workshops

Our Facilitator Training Workshops are experiential intensives designed to teach adults the basics they need to know to run circles of any duration or size. We offer one-day introductory workshops, 4-day basic trainings and week-long advanced trainings and circle retreats in a home setting, on-site location, community center, insitution, or retreat center.

Our TTC training staff are active facilitators who ususally run their own weekly teen circles, and we are often joined by teens who are currently in a circle, or have been part of a circle during their middle or high school years, and special guest speakers on various subjects pertinent to working with youth.

Our lead trainers have extensive experience in process-oriented modalities, and are either certified in the practice of Compassionate Listening(SM) or have taken advanced training in the skill and teach the young people in their circles to use the practice within circle and in all aspects of their lives.
>for more information on trainings & workshops

facilitators

Circle facilitators are counselors, youth service providers, parents, teachers, professionals or simply adults who are passionate about helping youth. Facilitators are fundamentally charged with the responsibility of “holding the space," of the circle -- yet they are participants as well as mentors and they bring their own feelings and life-challenges to the group, as well as sharing their knowledge, experience, and skills with the teens. Circles are opportunities for youth to experience adults as real people who have gone through or are still going through many of the issues they are going through in their lives.

The circle model we teach is based on principles and practices we have honed over the past 17 years. These practices are drawn from communication techniques including Compassionate Listening and Nonviolent Communication. These include a set of agreements and practices that set a context in which communication and interaction occur. As girls build safety with each other they openly share what is happening in their lives --what they “think, feel, see, and know,” the 4 primary components Carol Gilligan talks about when she points to the risk girls have of “losing their voices’ as they become teens.

As guys build safety in circle, they take down their "tough guise,” part of the "crisis of masculinity" Jackson Katz speaks about which revolves around the exaggerated, hyper inflated image of masculinity (the "tough guise") that is being promoted increasingly in toys, video games, music videos and films designed to appeal to boys and men. Katz argues that messages equating masculinity with dominance, power and control are pervasive in U.S. society--and that these messages have a restrictive, negative impact on boys and men, as well as girls and women.

gendertalks

Teen Talking Circles also encompass GenderTalks(SM), mixed gender circles of approximately 20-30 youth, where girls and guys come together to share their experiences, talk about relationships (of all kinds), and explore what it means to be male, female, and human. These are usually longer gatherings of a half or full day that include time for the girls and guys to meet both separately and together.

real men do circle

Often it is harder for male facilitators to start Guy’s Circles than it is for women to start Girl’s Circles. However, when given the opportunity to participate in a GenderTalks more guys come than girls. After a day of doing GenderTalks, 100% of the time the guys present ask the men present if they would start a Guys Circle for them.

circle agreements

Each circle creates its own set of agreements during the first few meetings. These agreements set a baseline for behavior and establish expectations of the group for each member and of each member for the group. The agreements arise in answer to the question, “What would make this a safe space for you to tell the truth?” While they may vary somewhat from group to group, the agreements generally include the following: Keep confidentiality (what’s said in group stays in group); tell the truth; talk about yourself, not about others; ask questions rather than jumping to conclusions; avoid negative judgment and criticism; take responsibility/don’t blame others; bring group conflicts to the circle (don’t talk behind each others’ backs); honor each other’s process (allow for growth and change, what’s true today might change tomorrow); look for the gift in each other; honor each other’s perspectives; show up (come to group) and be present (pay attention); start on time and end on time; let someone know if you can’t come; sit in the fire and work through conflict; be willing to share yourself, so that everyone can be seen.

In addition to these group process agreements, there are commitments that facilitators ask of the group and make to the group. Facilitators ask participants to make a commitment not to use drugs, alcohol, or mind-altering substances before or during circle or at circle activities; facilitators make a commitment to seek outside help for any participant who reveals that they are being harmed by others, or whose actions may result in harm to themselves or others, including consultation with family and/or referral to outside counseling. Facilitators also commit to reminding the group of their agreements when necessary, being authentic with the group, and keeping the focus of the circle on the teen participants rather than themselves.

As groups begin the process of sharing, facilitators introduce a set of practices that help to deepen communication. These include reflective listening and active listening, inquiry, use of I statements, describing specifics and avoiding generalizations, separating the behavior from the person, developing empathy/standing in another’s shoes, cultivating compassion for self and others, recognizing and naming emotions, owning mistakes and accepting responsibility, practicing forgiveness (asking for and giving, to self and others), allowing, accepting, and honoring differences, and allowing discomfort and disagreement. Facilitators may also draw on a variety of exercises that demonstrate specific practices or give structure to a particular process, such as conflict resolution.

Once the agreements are clear and the practices have been introduced, groups operate in a loose structure. The groups are often based around check-in, when each person shares what is alive for them in the moment without interruption for questions, advice, or comment. As groups become familiar with the agreements and practices, often all that is needed is the opportunity for the each teen to share with the group what is happening in their lives.

topics and themes

Although the groups are not topic or agenda driven, similar topics and themes usually emerge from any group of teens, girls or guys. These include: sex and relationships (birth control, pregnancy, std’s, setting boundaries, sexual questions, peer pressure, the effects of the media, respect of self and partner); pornography, rape, sexual violence, male violence toward women; drugs and alcohol/substance use, family systems—parents, siblings, conflict, abuse, divorce, step-parents, communication, compassion; work, school, education, career—the future; creativity and self-expression; spirituality and religion; emotional literacy; health and well-being; body image and eating disorders; peer-group relationships/popularity and belonging; sexual identity; persona/personality/character—fear of authenticity, belonging vs conforming; breaking patterns/change; self-esteem, self-image, self-awareness; environment, ecology, and nature; social justice, social issues; sexism, racism, other -isms; conflicts; loneliness, isolation, depression, fear of rejection/not being ok; money—making a living, poverty, family resources, and social status; women’s movement, feminism, social movements, globalization