Facilitator Guide > > Session 1: Community & Connection Building
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this session participants will have:
- developed a set of mutually agreed upon collective agreements.
- gained a stronger sense of the Act for Change Leadership program, its facilitators, and participants.
- built the foundation of a trusting community.
Suggested Agenda
- :00- Welcome (Introductions)
- Name, School/County and Who is your favorite artist?…
- Write pronouns within name box
- :10 Grounding activity, then “True of Me” (hint this gets youth to turn on cameras)
- Please turn on video on and unmute
- Find a piece of paper or post-it that you can use to cover your camera.
- Person who starts says a statement that is true for them
- If that is true for you, lift the paper, so you can be seen and wave
- Person who made a statement picks someone waving and then it is their turn to say something that is true for them and the game continues.
- :20 Create of a set of Collective Agreements
(to be displayed and briefly discussed at the beginning of each following session)- Call each other in, also Speak your own truth
- Assume good intentions of others, don’t ignore your own impact
- Accept each other’s self-care needs
- Call for additional agreements from teen participants
- :35 Breakout Rooms – “Teen Talks”- Choose 2-3 questions all participants should answer. When possible, have teen program graduates facilitate.
- If you could go anywhere in the world, where would you travel to and why?
- What is something you are grateful for and why?
- What does a perfect day look like to you?
- What is your passion/biggest interest?
- What have you learned about yourself in the last year?
- What is something you are hoping to talk about within this group?
- 1:00 Set up the following statements (or other statements that elicit strong feelings but don’t touch on racially or culturally sensitive topic areas) as an agree/disagree poll. Practice applying norms from the collective agreement using these polls.
- Teenagers should rule the world
- Aliens exist and are friendly
- Reality TV is overrated
- There should be a dress code for virtual classrooms
- Extinct animals (like dinosaurs) should be brought back to life
- Racism is a big problem in the United States
- 1:20 Program Description: This is a time for letting the group know what the Act for Change Leadership program is about, what is expected of them as participants and what they can expect from the program. It is also a time to elicit teens’ hopes and expectations of the group.
- 1:25 – Integrative Closing:
- I liked
- I wish
- I wonder
Facilitator’s Section
Notes
- Collective Agreements are an important aspect of the community building and “difficult talk” process. Conversations will emphasize topics such as but not limited to racism, stereotypes, and prejudices. These are topics that most are socialized not to speak about across racial identities.
- Collective Agreements can be added/edited over the course of the program but should be briefly referenced at the onset of each meeting. By the 3rd meeting, this need only be a brief mention.
- Another potential opening activity with a group that doesn’t know each other is “Cameras Off”. Ask everyone to turn off their cameras before entering the room. Do some of the opening activities, such as the poll, with the camera off. Before turning cameras back on, ask folks to take a private inventory of what they think other in the room might look like. Explain that our brains start to prejudge others, and fil in what we think someone looks like based on prejudices, previous experiences etc. This is some risk to reinforcing stereotypes with this activity, especially this early on with an unknown group. Facilitators may also choose to be the only people that remain off camera.
Sofia Field Notes
- Included the definition of dissonance in the collective agreement
- This agreement is important because it’s a contract to ourselves and to each other for what we expect in this space. Before we begin, I also want to introduce the concept of Dissonance can be really constructive, it is embracing the discomfort. Being pushed out of your comfort zone is not being pushed out of the room, but instead is pushing you into a space of critical reflection. However, you still need to feel safe. If it ever gets to be too much or hurtful, we need to communicate and be respectful of boundaries. Let’s talk about what those boundaries are.
- Also included a poll of questions in addition to the collective agreement poll for the purposes of understanding the youth and measuring the differences between first session and later:
- Do you feel like you belong in this program?
- Do you have one clear reason for being in the program?
- Although these were for the purpose of specific assessment, these questions were really helpful for understanding the goals of the individual youth and not simply presume what I thought they’d be feeling. It gave them the space to talk about their expectations.
Spring 2024 additions:
- Other “fun” agree/disagree poll questions/statements:
- Is wearing socks with sandals ever acceptable?
- Roblox is only for little kids.
- iPhone is better than Android.
- Who’s the better artist: Niki Minaj, or Meghan Thee Stallion?
- “Teen Talks” are less effective when your group size is small. Consider a single group discussion, or allowing participants to type a response in the chat before launching into discussion. Otherwise they will blow through this section in a minute or two.
Facilitator Additional Resources
Collective Agreements
Intergroup Dialogue Project. “IDP Guide: Community Agreements.” Intergroup Dialogue Project – Dialogue Across Difference, Cornell University, April 2021, https://idp.cornell.edu/idp-guides/idp-guide-community-agreements/