Leadership from the Inside Out – Circles

CIRCLES

Leadership from the Inside Out Booklet 1 – Circles

Leadership from the Inside Out Introduction Welcome to the Leadership from the Inside Out packet. This packet is designed to support and enrich your work as a troop leader and to help create the experiential opportunities and conditions for girls to learn about and express their own leadership potential. Girl Scouts of the USA’s new program model will provide you with a three-part framework for use with girls as follows:

• Discover: Girls understand themselves and their values and use their knowledge and skills to explore the world

• Connect: Girls care about, inspire and team with others locally and globally

• Take Action: Girls act to make the world a better place.

Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council’s (GSACPC) Leadership from the Inside Out packet focuses on four elements that have been a part of Girl Scouting for almost one hundred years.

The traditional elements remain critical to the success of Girl Scouting and the implementation of the new program model.

The four elements are:

• Circles – how we sit and come together with each other as we create and experience together to ensure everyone is included and engaged.

• Reflection – deliberately taking time to reflect on our experience, in moments of silence and journaling exercises to strengthen our learning.

• Ceremony – creating ceremonies together and acknowledging special moments in our lives as rites of passage help us develop a sense of belonging.

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Co-Generational Community – assures girls of all ages are witnessed and affirmed by all members of our community, especially those who are elders in the community.

When using the Leadership from the Inside Out modules, you are encouraged to follow these guidelines:

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Watch the video. It provides an overview of the modules and shows how the concepts of Circles, Reflection, Ceremony, and Co-generational Community are a part of Girl Scouting.

Read through the four module booklets to gain further understanding of how each element works and how they work together.

Select one element to start and apply the information to your own individual and group needs in accordance with the group’s cultural values and the Girl Scout Promise and Law. Evaluate the outcomes based on the GSUSA Leadership Outcomes included in each booklet.

The modules booklets also include information to help you understand the importance of:

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Creating a Circle of Belonging (Circle) The importance of each individual, the “Who” (Reflection) Creating a positive container (Ceremony) Storytelling (Co-generational Community)

Although the information concerning each of these elements is located in specific booklets as indicated above, we hope that creating a sense of belonging, establishing the value of each individual, setting a safe container, and engaging in storytelling will help to create the healthy environments in troops, neighborhood meetings, trainings and special events for girls and adults to which we aspire.

After using the modules, remember to:

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Continue to identify and keep track of your own learning related to the modules. To help you with this, a listing of the Leadership from the Inside Out activities for adult leaders is included in this packet.

Seek ways to use the learning from each module in other settings in your life.

Engage in dialogue with others who are using the modules and share your own experiences. This will help to further expand our understanding of leadership from the inside out.

Booklet I – Circles Circles of Belonging Girl Scouts is and has always been the organization best positioned to offer girls the opportunity to connect with their own unique inner leadership potential, to help them make decisions, and to take actions to make the world a better place. We offer girls the tools to be successful leaders now and throughout their lives. As a Girl Scout leader you are a critical part of creating the environment where girls feel they belong and are safe physically, emotionally and spiritually.

Girl Scout leaders provide girls the important relationship with an adult that has been the foundation for the Movement that Juliette Low started one hundred years ago. As a Girl Scout leader, the love and nurturing you freely share helps girls to develop courage, confidence and character.

The girl-adult relationship is reflected in the Circle of Belonging, which creates the safe conditions for girls to Discover, Connect and Take Action:

From a place of love as leaders we:

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Affirm our girls’ value and being Listen to their dreams and concerns Learn from and support their inner strength Lead them to be all they can be

Ever since people first gathered to talk, sit around the fire, or hold ceremonies, they have sat in circle. In the Girl Scouts, there is a long tradition of gathering together in circle, whether it is a Brownie circle, a friendship circle or a circle around the campfire.

In a circle:

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• Everyone has equal status – there is no hierarchy and no-one is in or out. Everyone belongs in the unbroken circle of wholeness.

• We can all see each other’s faces and we can see everyone at once. No one is hidden or invisible and every person is important.

• We have a dedicated enclosed space that is safe from the outside world. It is a space that is protected and kept by those in the circle.

Circles promote a culture of listening, respect and openness to others. They represent wholeness and inclusion.

A circle offers the opportunity to hold/place symbols in the center that have meaning to the group or appropriately represent the theme of the circle that is being called. For example, if a troop is celebrating a bridging they might place items in the center that represent what they have done together and items that represent the next level to which the girls are moving.

Circle Practices 1 | Closing the Circle

This indicates that everyone is present and something is about to begin. It helps to indicate that a special space is being created. Closing the circle may be as simple as acknowledging the circle (saying “The circle is closed”), calling everyone to be present, or it could be a brief ceremony developed by the group. (See the Ceremony module.)

2 | Check In

Each person has a chance to speak so that every voice is heard at the beginning. Everyone listens respectfully as each person is given the space to speak without interruptions or comment.

A question relevant to the theme of the circle can be posed at the beginning. For example, in a bridging, the question might be “What have we each achieved that we are proud of?” Or each person can say one word to describe how she is feeling.

Anyone who wishes can pass and speak later if she chooses (See the Reflection module for more on check in.)

3 | Conversation/Activity

Someone can introduce what is going to happen next, whether it is a topic for discussion, an activity, or a problem that everyone will work on together.

4 | Checkout

As the time in the circle comes to an end, each person has a chance to be heard once again. People can speak to what has happened during the conversation/activity, how they are feeling or respond to a reflective question.

5 | Opening the Circle

This is a signal that the circle time is complete. Opening the circle may be anything that seems appropriate to consciously bring the time to an end. It may be a song, a friendship circle or symbolically removing items that were placed in the center of the circle. For example, the council’s Trailblazers Elder Circle rings a bell and someone says, “The circle is open but unbroken.”

Guidelines/Ground Rules Depending on the purpose of the circle, the age of the participants and how familiar participants are with circle practice, introduction guidelines after the check in can help people feel comfortable and let them know what to expect Examples of guidelines/ground rules might include:

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• Use of a talking stick. Participants can speak only when they are holding the stick or other symbolic object.

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Confidentiality. Participants commit to keeping confidential anything that is spoken. Each person can share anything about herself and her experience but not what anyone else has said. (Exception: As a leader, you may be obligated by law to break confidentiality in particular situations. For example if you become aware of abuse or other serious matters in a girl’s life. In these cases, you should consider letting the girl know what you plan to do and why.)

• A commitment to listening with the intent to understand and not judge others.

• Respect for others’ needs, views and experience.

• Each participant agrees to say what is true for her and take responsibility for her own views.

Leaders may need to provide a further explanation and/or clarification of the guidelines.

The participants may want to establish their own group guidelines. There should be explicit agreement and commitment to those selected. Young girls may suggest something like “We should be nice to each other” while older girls might ask for “respectful listening.”

By using deliberate circle practice, leaders are able to help girls achieve some of the 15 outcomes GSUSA has identified as ways in which girls discover themselves, connect with others, and take action to make the world a better place.

The Girl Scout Leadership Outcomes Discover

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Girls develop a strong sense of self.

Girls develop positive values.

Girls gain practical life skills.

Girls seek challenges in the world.

Girls develop critical thinking.

Connect

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Girls develop healthy relationships.

Girls promote cooperation and team building.

Girls can resolve conflicts.

Girls advance diversity in a multicultural world.

Girls feel connected to their communities, locally, globally.

Take Action

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Girls can identify community needs.

Girls are resourceful problem solvers Girls advocate for themselves, locally and globally Girls educate and inspire others to act.

Girls feel empowered to make a difference in the world.

For additional information on the GSUSA outcomes, go to www.girlscouts.org.

Circle practice helps girls to develop a strong sense of self and develop healthy relationships. For each grade level, you have been provided a definition of the outcome and signs of what girls might do or say that show they achieved the outcome.

grade level

outcome

indicator

• Are better able to recognize their strengths and abilities.

• Are able to identify and communicate their feelings to others.

• Make positive statements about themselves such as “I was a good friend to Luna today.”

• Express feelings such as “I feel happy when I am with my friends.”

Girl Scout Brownie

• Have increased confidence in their ability.

• Are better able to show empathy toward others.

• Express pride in accomplishments when speaking with others.

• Makes empathetic statements such as “I helped Kim because she was getting frustrated.”

Girl Scout Junior

• Gain a clearer sense of their individual identities in relation to, and apart from, outside influences.

• Strengthen communication skills for maintaining healthy relationships.

Girl Scout Cadette

• Are better able to negotiate the effects of socio-cultural factors, gender issues, and stereotyping/bias on their sense of self.

• Are able to use positive communication skills.

Girl Scout Senior

• Are better able to recognize the multiple demands and expectations of others while establishing own individuality.

• Are better able to recognize and address challenges to forming and maintaining healthy relationships with others.

• Increase their sense of autonomy.

• Strengthen strategies for maintaining healthy relationship.

• Report increased confidence in dealing with outside pressures that try to dictate their thoughts and behavior (e.g. peer pressure, advertising, cultural traditions.)

• Name communication strategies that help them in their relationship (e.g listening to ideas of others, encouraging others instead of criticizing them.)

• Make use of strategies to resist peer pressure (e.g. communicate with confidence, take responsibility for actions.)

• Gives examples of behaviors to promote mutual respect, trust and understanding.

• Describe challenges faced in finding a balance between accepting group beliefs and thinking/ making decisions for self • Identify behaviors that hinder the development of positive relationships (e.g. backstabbing, gossip.)

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Girl Scout Daisy

Girl Scout Ambassador

• Report being more self-reliant.

• Give examples of using assertive behavior and be able to explain when and why these work/don’t work.

Contributors Carol Ackerson Barbara Cecil Glennifer Gillespie Mary Lee Hoffman Beth Jandernoa Matt Thesing Tamara Woodbury

Editors Glennifer Gillespie Robin Telle

Graphic Design Nicole Andersen

Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council would like to thank The Fetzer Institute for their generous support of this project.

Arizona Cactus-Pine Council, Inc. 119 E Coronado Road | Phoenix, AZ 85004 602.452.7000 | 800.352.6133 www.girlscoutsaz.org