PB+ Resources
CREATING AND REVIEWING A NETWORK
Aim : to create personal networks for support, recognising the
importance of talking about problems if we feel unsafe.
Time : 30 minutes
Materials :
- Legend for theme 2 : 'There is nothing so awful (or small) that we
can't talk about it with someone'
- Paper for individual participants
- Pens
Introduction:
We all have choices. Making decisions for ourselves about those choices
is an important part of being human. Although we need to make decisions
for ourselves, we do not have to make them by ourselves. We can use a
network of people that we trust and can talk with before coming to a decision
about the choice before us.
The second theme of Protective Behaviours is this:
There is nothing so awful that we can't talk about it with someone.
Let's look at the phrases in that statement.
There is nothing …
Why do we use this term nothing?
(an absolute, no thing)
… so awful …
What words come to mind when we see, hear or say the word awful?
( terrible, horrible, disgusting, overwhelming, secretive, shameful)
(Some groups are adding the phrase … or small … because experience
has shown that there are those who feel that their problems are insignificant
compared to others and so do not seek help early enough. It could be seen
as a form of protective interrupting. Whether it is included in the statement
is up to the individual leader.)
… that we can't talk about it …
Turn to the person next to you and for one minute discuss how it feels
to talk with someone who listens.
On a flipchart or OHP acetate display a five column chart with the headings
: talk, qualities, how know, who, how contact. Record the responses of
the participants.
What sort of responses did you have to how it felt to talk?
(release, relief, freedom, felt lighter, clarified things, helped me think)
What qualities do we look for in the person to whom we choose to talk?
(trustworthy, listener, understanding, has time, able to help, compassionate,
sympathetic, non-judgmental, objective, honest, believes you)
All these qualities can help us to feel safe.
How do we know that someone would have one or more of these qualities?
(past experience, recommendation, reputation, intuition, instinct, feel
safe, their job)
Our early warning signs can be relevant here.
… with someone.
Who are some of the people we could turn to when we need to talk?
(family members, friends, neighbours, teachers, pets, counsellor, church
leader, God)
In Protective Behaviours it is suggested that each person identifies
a minimum of four people in addition to any adult at home that we might
choose to trust when we need to talk. These people are called your personal
network.
It's a good idea to write down this network and keep it safe. You can
use anything that has five parts: your hand; a pentagon; a star; a flower;
an umbrella; a tree; a string of balloons.
If we take the hand as an example, the thumb could represent one or more
of the adults who live at home. The other four fingers are for people
outside the home who we identify as trusted people we could talk to if
we were feeling unsafe.
In the palm of the hand we could place God, an imaginary friend or a
pet. Up our sleeve we could have the names and phone numbers of some helping
organisations.
Activity :
Identify your own network using a piece of A4 paper.
Draw your own choice of shape, or object, and add the names of the people
you would like to see on your network.
Having completed the exercise, let's think about how we might contact
people on our network when we need to speak to someone and complete the
last column on the chart.
(phone, text, e-mail, call round)
Epilogue:
Some people may develop a number of networks for different situations,
e.g. school, work, church. Whether we have one network or more, it's important
to remember that people move on and our needs change. We need to check
our networks regularly and see if the people are still available or if
our attitude towards them has changed. We may need to take some people
off our network and substitute others. This is called Network Review and
it's suggested that we do this regularly to keep our networks up to date.
Possible adaptations or applications to the Church context:
- How important is it to have God in your network?
- How would you see yourself calling upon God in this way?
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