I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

Mary Schlieder, Jessie Meinke, & Dawn Draeger Author

04/06/2023 Added

8 Plays

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2023 State Conference Session

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[00:00:01.189]And now I spend my time helping other people
[00:00:03.990]facilitate groups.
[00:00:05.250]The objectives of this session are to learn how to implement
[00:00:08.040]Circle of Friends peer support programs in K-12 schools.
[00:00:12.030]To explore the training and support that we have for you,
[00:00:14.700]for anyone who wants to have a group in their school.
[00:00:17.370]The benefits from Circle of Friends
[00:00:19.110]that we found over all these years of doing it in Nebraska
[00:00:22.380]is that there are increased social networks
[00:00:25.080]for students with ASD.
[00:00:27.090]Peer acceptance for learning differences increases.
[00:00:31.110]There's higher social engagement for our kids.
[00:00:33.930]And it creates a school environment
[00:00:36.690]conducive to social skills practice.
[00:00:39.960]Go ahead, you can go the next slide.
[00:00:47.029]Are you able to advance that Jessie?
[00:00:49.419](indistinct chatter)
[00:00:50.790]Hopefully she'll come right back, hang tight.
[00:00:56.286](indistinct chatter)
[00:00:59.550]When she comes on, just keep rolling.
[00:01:02.550]She moving, so that's a good sign.
[00:01:05.981]Hey Mary, you just froze part way through.
[00:01:08.490]Oh, sorry.
[00:01:09.960]Yeah, go ahead.
[00:01:10.793]You can go ahead and can you hear me now?
[00:01:12.090]Could you repeat?
[00:01:16.701]Can you hear me now, okay?
[00:01:20.550]Yes.
[00:01:21.383]Okay.
[00:01:22.440]The benefits include increased social networks
[00:01:24.600]for our students.
[00:01:25.860]Peer acceptance for learning differences, increases.
[00:01:30.300]There's higher social engagement.
[00:01:31.800]And we create with Circle of Friends a school environment
[00:01:35.100]conducive to social skills practice.
[00:01:38.610]Okay, can you switch that slide Jessie?
[00:01:41.070]Or can I?
[00:01:42.000]Okay, thanks.
[00:01:43.770]I'm flying blind here, I can't see anything,
[00:01:45.810]so have to thank you here.
[00:01:47.784](indistinct crosstalk)
[00:01:50.040]So you'll just have to tell me what I need to do.
[00:01:52.890]Summary, the short version of what you're gonna do today
[00:01:56.220]or learn today, the summary of our presentation
[00:01:59.190]Circle of Friends benefits both focus students
[00:02:01.620]and their peer mentors.
[00:02:03.120]We found over the years that parents will come to us
[00:02:05.220]and ask us, can my child be in Circle of Friends
[00:02:07.830]to be a peer mentor?
[00:02:09.270]So we always thought that was pretty cool.
[00:02:11.430]The program is designed for Pre-K through adolescence.
[00:02:15.060]Circle of Friends can be customized to meet your needs.
[00:02:18.630]It's not a one-size-fits-all program,
[00:02:21.030]even though there's a specific framework.
[00:02:23.160]There are ways that you can personalize it
[00:02:25.770]to meet your needs.
[00:02:27.000]And we also offer free ongoing training and support.
[00:02:30.090]It's available in our state and so it doesn't cost any money
[00:02:34.437]and you can all do it.
[00:02:38.100]Next slide.
[00:02:38.933]All right, and Dawn and Jessie,
[00:02:40.800]go ahead and introduce yourselves.
[00:02:47.460]Hi, I'm Dawn Draeger.
[00:02:48.390]I've been in education for 27 years.
[00:02:50.850]I spent the first 20 years in the classroom
[00:02:53.310]as a science teacher and in the last seven years
[00:02:57.960]I've worked with school counseling.
[00:03:00.870]And I am a co-advisor for our Circle of Friends group
[00:03:05.100]and I help with Unified Track, (indistinct).
[00:03:13.920]Hi, thanks for coming to this meeting.
[00:03:16.020]And I just need to preface, I am by no means
[00:03:18.840]an expert in this, but it is one of the highlights
[00:03:21.773]of my week in the school being part of Circle of Friends.
[00:03:25.560]So I'm just really hopeful that we can just share
[00:03:27.960]some of our tips and strategy and things that have worked
[00:03:31.470]for us to help you get a group started
[00:03:34.290]or just to improve your group.
[00:03:36.900]I was a para for eight years,
[00:03:38.760]before going back and getting my teaching certification.
[00:03:41.490]And so this is my eighth year as special education teacher
[00:03:45.360]and my fourth year of high school in Crete.
[00:03:49.290]I am fortunate to be involved with Unified Bullying,
[00:03:53.183]Unified Track with our first year at Crete, very exciting.
[00:03:56.880]And then SCA and Circle of Friends.
[00:04:01.740]Jessie's busy, busy. Y'all are.
[00:04:05.130]Okay, next slide.
[00:04:06.990]All right, I'm gonna give you a very quick background
[00:04:09.240]and tell you a little bit about what we've learned
[00:04:11.820]about Circle of Friends and then Jessie and Dawn
[00:04:14.100]are going to take over and explain
[00:04:15.840]about how they implement Circle of Friends.
[00:04:19.202]And then at the end we're gonna give you the resources
[00:04:21.000]so you can get additional information.
[00:04:23.040]This is a one hour presentation
[00:04:25.110]and we'll give you a site to go to
[00:04:26.640]where you can learn a whole lot more and dig deeper.
[00:04:29.250]So I started Circle of Friends out of desperation.
[00:04:32.820]I had an eighth grade student who wasn't doing well.
[00:04:35.040]He was doing great academically,
[00:04:37.320]but socially, emotionally, behaviorally,
[00:04:40.020]he was confused by the social world around him.
[00:04:43.410]It was triggering behaviors.
[00:04:45.180]He was isolated from his peers.
[00:04:46.980]He was beginning to not wanna come to school.
[00:04:49.290]So I thought, well let's call some kids in.
[00:04:51.600]We got some good kids in this class
[00:04:53.100]and see if we can talk to them about autism
[00:04:55.410]and see if we can get something going here.
[00:04:58.710]This child's parents were very much onboard
[00:05:01.020]and so we together kind of floundered our way through
[00:05:04.260]to figure out what would work.
[00:05:05.970]It really, we got a great benefit very quickly from it.
[00:05:09.600]We were developing these networks of friendship
[00:05:11.820]and support for him among his peers.
[00:05:14.100]His behaviors decreased,
[00:05:16.380]the social world opened up.
[00:05:17.790]So instead of just practicing social skills with me
[00:05:20.880]in isolation in the resource room,
[00:05:22.950]he was able to go out and practice them
[00:05:25.260]in the real natural school community world with his peers.
[00:05:29.250]So I got excited, started presenting at this
[00:05:31.380]and other conferences, and the rest is history.
[00:05:34.380]With support with the Autism Action Partnership,
[00:05:37.620]we started a pilot program in 2010-11
[00:05:40.620]with only eight schools.
[00:05:42.390]Those were high schools.
[00:05:43.680]And then afterwards, we opened it up to K-12 schools
[00:05:47.910]and next year we had 50 schools.
[00:05:49.890]And over time we've been in over 200 Nebraska schools
[00:05:52.830]have Circle of Friends groups
[00:05:54.210]with the support of the Autism Action Partnership
[00:05:57.450]and the Nebraska Autism Spectrum Disorders Network,
[00:06:00.420]the sponsors of your conference.
[00:06:04.620]Next slide.
[00:06:05.640]So what is Circle of Friends?
[00:06:07.200]It's an educational approach that facilitates
[00:06:09.720]the inclusion of children with social emotional challenges
[00:06:12.750]in the school community by engaging the peer group
[00:06:15.600]in supporting the individual with special needs.
[00:06:18.600]Who are the focus students?
[00:06:19.950]They're students who have behaviors that isolate them
[00:06:22.440]from their peers.
[00:06:23.730]They have difficulty making friends on their own
[00:06:25.830]and they need support and teaching and how to do that.
[00:06:29.610]Our focus students are students with ASD,
[00:06:32.130]as well as others with special needs.
[00:06:35.633](indistinct chatter)
[00:06:38.451]So why do Circle of Friends?
[00:06:39.510]Nobody should do anything just because someone says
[00:06:41.640]they should.
[00:06:42.780]There's a pretty solid research base emerging
[00:06:45.780]to support this form of peer-mediated intervention.
[00:06:49.170]At the end I'll, we will share links with you
[00:06:51.240]of where this research comes from.
[00:06:52.890]But what we've learned is that comprehensive planning
[00:06:56.460]for social competence development
[00:06:58.874]incorporates peer training,
[00:07:00.660]Poor social competence plus isolation by peers
[00:07:04.080]equals poor outcomes for youth with ASD.
[00:07:07.740]Peer mentors in Circle of Friends
[00:07:09.210]show increased empathy towards classmates with autism.
[00:07:13.260]Focus students in Circle of Friends
[00:07:15.750]show increase in positive social interactions
[00:07:18.210]with their peers.
[00:07:19.890]Social interactions extended outside the school setting.
[00:07:22.950]So we got those groups going in the schools,
[00:07:25.230]but then parents were reporting that it was continuing on
[00:07:28.595]outside of school.
[00:07:30.930]Group facilitators reported improved social skills
[00:07:33.870]in school.
[00:07:35.220]And parents of focus students, peers,
[00:07:37.500]the focus students themselves, and facilitators
[00:07:40.140]reported improved feelings of empowerment and wellbeing
[00:07:43.110]from implementing Circle of Friends groups.
[00:07:45.960]So like I said, we'll share links where you can find
[00:07:48.240]to read more about the findings of what the results are
[00:07:51.810]of implementing Circle of Friends groups in school settings.
[00:07:57.600]At this point, I'm gonna turn this over to the real experts.
[00:08:00.480]I disagree with Jessie when she said she's not an expert.
[00:08:03.090]Implementing Circle of Friends for eight years,
[00:08:04.850]in my opinion, definitely makes you an expert.
[00:08:08.127]And these people do a wonderful job in their program.
[00:08:11.460]They're gonna tell you and share how they do it.
[00:08:14.130]You'll learn about what a Circle of Friends framework
[00:08:16.350]looks like by listening to them.
[00:08:18.180]If you are here and you have a kindergarten student or child
[00:08:21.660]or a third grader or a fifth grader,
[00:08:23.970]they're gonna be talking more about older children
[00:08:26.430]in their program because that's who they work with.
[00:08:28.800]However, Circle of Friends, as we said
[00:08:31.140]is appropriate for kindergarten through 12th grade
[00:08:33.810]and you can just listen through the framework,
[00:08:36.240]which is the same for all grade levels.
[00:08:38.070]There's not that much difference between a five-year-old
[00:08:40.260]and a 15-year-old as far as what they need
[00:08:42.810]and Circle of Friends program works for all of them.
[00:08:45.500]At the end we will share a site with you that you can go to
[00:08:48.360]to learn more about how elementary school people do it,
[00:08:52.320]upper elementary, middle school, and anyway.
[00:08:55.620]So I'm gonna turn it over to you guys now.
[00:08:57.970]Okay, thanks Mary.
[00:09:00.265](indistinct)
[00:09:09.136]Okay, as Mary just said,
[00:09:09.969]we're going to start just sharing about
[00:09:11.760]how we started Circle of Friends at Crete High School.
[00:09:17.400]I was not a part of the initial group.
[00:09:20.220]Dawn and our school psychologist started it
[00:09:23.536]at the high school, and then I was able to kinda jump in
[00:09:26.128]and now be a part of it.
[00:09:29.384]Our core values for Circle of Friends at Crete
[00:09:32.730]are focusing on kindness, integrity, and inclusiveness.
[00:09:42.330]Yeah, you can share.
[00:09:48.300]So like Jessie said,
[00:09:50.474]my first year as a counselor, I had this,
[00:09:54.180]I didn't have any idea, somebody else had talked about it
[00:09:55.747]in one of my graduate courses that summer.
[00:09:58.680]And so I teamed up with our school psychologist
[00:10:02.520]and we just kind of got it rolling.
[00:10:08.610]This is a picture of our very first group in 2017-18
[00:10:12.900]and Jessie and I were talking,
[00:10:14.773]and before you guys got here that it's kind of cool
[00:10:17.447]'cause a lot of these kids with siblings now
[00:10:20.040]have heard about it through their older sisters and brothers
[00:10:23.340]and are now part our group.
[00:10:26.010]And we hear back a lot from these kids as they graduate,
[00:10:29.307]and in college, and doing other things.
[00:10:32.460]They come back and want to visit (indistinct).
[00:10:41.081](muffled speech)
[00:10:48.660]Not issue, it's their friend.
[00:10:50.160]Yep, sorry.
[00:10:52.333]We're never on the same page.
[00:10:54.500](faint laughter)
[00:10:56.010]The first thing is find a friend
[00:10:57.690]and it's really fun to do this with Jessie,
[00:11:00.960]we have a lot of fun with this,
[00:11:02.910]and Dr. Petereit back at our high school.
[00:11:05.850]And we kind of split up the duties
[00:11:07.500]because just like we all know, you're very, very busy.
[00:11:11.250]So how many out here are already doing
[00:11:12.930]Circle of Friends group?
[00:11:15.192]So a few of you.
[00:11:17.730]So as a school counselor,
[00:11:18.563]are there any other school counselors here?
[00:11:21.780]Okay.
[00:11:22.613]But we're all just very, very busy
[00:11:24.930]and wear a lot of hats.
[00:11:26.550]And so it's really fun to tag team this with friends
[00:11:31.380]and find someone if you're just first starting your group,
[00:11:34.680]I would suggest finding a school
[00:11:36.930]or a colleague that already has a group
[00:11:39.630]and may let them or some students come visit your school
[00:11:42.630]to kind of get you started.
[00:11:44.460]That's kind of what we did.
[00:11:46.230]But just kind of reach out and don't try to do it alone.
[00:11:48.690]'cause it makes it way more fun if you have (indistinct)
[00:11:57.159]I'm just gonna follow up on what Dawn was asking.
[00:11:58.903]Do we have parents here?
[00:12:00.760]Like, I'm just kinda wondering the group dynamics.
[00:12:04.980]'cause if we have like parents that are here
[00:12:06.600]looking for their children
[00:12:11.330]or maybe you're a teacher in a school
[00:12:12.567]and you're just curious about it.
[00:12:13.890]But I just didn't know if there were like families
[00:12:16.120]or any parents of students
[00:12:17.320]that are maybe part of Circle of Friends
[00:12:18.540]or you want your child to be in Circle of Friends.
[00:12:25.990]Okay, this next part, provide an application.
[00:12:29.040]So we have a daily announcement at the high school
[00:12:33.000]when we start promoting Circle of Friends
[00:12:34.920]in that announcement at the beginning of the school year.
[00:12:38.670]And then we tell the good, be on the lookout in their email,
[00:12:42.120]because we'd send out a school-wide email
[00:12:43.847]with a Google Form for students to apply
[00:12:46.792]to be a part of our group.
[00:12:50.640]This year we have record numbers of students
[00:12:53.840]in Circle of Friends that wanna be a part.
[00:12:56.340]It's a great problem to have,
[00:12:59.460]but in a way it's almost too many students.
[00:13:00.743]We have a lot more peers than our focus students.
[00:13:04.980]We're trying to figure out how to make that work
[00:13:08.430]and just be really functional and time well spent.
[00:13:15.941]Can I add something?
[00:13:16.774]Yeah.
[00:13:17.607]So we send that out to the student body
[00:13:19.170]but we're moving to the idea
[00:13:20.670]of maybe doing teacher recommendations
[00:13:22.800]or somehow kind of narrowing down.
[00:13:27.150]Do you wanna look at the Google Form?
[00:13:29.940]Yeah, we do have a link to our Google Form.
[00:13:33.981](muffled speech)
[00:13:38.370]This is kinda just a sample of what we share.
[00:13:41.861](distant voices)
[00:13:46.470]I do love reading through the,
[00:13:48.270]what do you hope to gain from this?
[00:13:50.820]Some of our high school kids, they are very insightful
[00:13:54.450]and it is always encouraging because you think about,
[00:13:58.080]you hear the negative stories
[00:14:00.060]and then I read through application form
[00:14:02.093]and you're like oh we are gonna just find,
[00:14:05.100]'cause we have a lot of great kids out there,
[00:14:08.400]that they get it.
[00:14:16.230]We do meet with the peers early on.
[00:14:20.370]We can talk about our expectations for that group
[00:14:23.610]and how important it is to show up.
[00:14:25.920]And Dawn will talk about our,
[00:14:27.538]we have an attendance policy now.
[00:14:29.210]We didn't always, but we're learning
[00:14:30.540]and we keep tweaking and trying to make it better.
[00:14:35.130]Just because we want it to be really,
[00:14:37.230]it's an important day for our focus students.
[00:14:39.840]They look forward to Circle of Friends.
[00:14:41.430]So we need our students to make sure they're showing up.
[00:14:47.040]Do you want me to talk about that first meeting?
[00:14:49.080]We're on step three.
[00:14:51.256](indistinct)
[00:14:56.300]Also at that meeting with our focus students,
[00:14:59.190]we try to see if they have ideas.
[00:15:00.930]We want them to buy into the program.
[00:15:02.970]We don't want it to just be us and our ideas
[00:15:06.450]and say here's what you're going to do.
[00:15:08.387]So it is like they get to have a say
[00:15:10.770]what our activities look like and we just buy into it.
[00:15:13.950]And so that's really cool, too.
[00:15:16.138]So they have the same.
[00:15:18.650]So at our very first meeting
[00:15:20.220]before we had a group established,
[00:15:22.680]I had reached out to a colleague,
[00:15:25.020]the counselor over at Wahoo,
[00:15:26.067]and he had a student who was really involved
[00:15:28.620]with their Circle of Friends
[00:15:29.610]who then went to Doane College, or Doane University,
[00:15:32.460]which is right in our backyard.
[00:15:34.260]So I reached out to him and he came over
[00:15:36.150]and talked to our students and kind of about his experience
[00:15:38.880]kinda gave his testimony, his journey in Circle of Friends
[00:15:41.910]and how it impacted him.
[00:15:42.960]And he had a pretty powerful story that was pretty cool
[00:15:45.900]'cause he had never, he kind of talked about how he was,
[00:15:48.480]his words were as a cocky athlete who kind of thought
[00:15:52.020]I was better than everybody else in school (indistinct),
[00:15:55.560]didn't really get to know kids that were different from me.
[00:15:58.680]And so once he got into this group, he really embraced it
[00:16:01.950]and he was pretty passionate about it.
[00:16:04.500]So that was kind of a cool story.
[00:16:07.710]Or you know like I said now when we start the first meeting
[00:16:11.730]and review applications, we have like maybe seniors
[00:16:15.120]who can talk to the freshmen and sophomores about it.
[00:16:17.250]So it's that very first one, you might wanna get someone.
[00:16:20.808]Now this is a video Mary wanted us to share.
[00:16:24.330]I think it was (indistinct).
[00:16:28.050]I need to (indistinct).
[00:16:32.515]Oh I probably did not.
[00:16:34.633](indistinct speech)
[00:16:36.345]Yeah, let me go back to present.
[00:16:37.590]You know what?
[00:16:38.430]Your top bar, go to the dots,
[00:16:40.470]the dots in the corner there, you'll have to (indistinct).
[00:16:42.605]My name is Mary, I'm Mary.
[00:16:43.933]Yep, go to those dots right there.
[00:16:45.180]Okay, and then.
[00:16:46.560]Move her down a little more.
[00:16:48.135]Sorry, I just lost my presentation.
[00:16:51.715]These, yeah, there you go.
[00:16:54.600]They should be optimized for video clip.
[00:16:57.630]Thank you.
[00:16:59.382]No, all good.
[00:17:02.940]My question though, I want this to be up here.
[00:17:08.280]I'm just clicking on random things now.
[00:17:10.410]I'll just go to the video.
[00:17:12.870]It's going to have that,
[00:17:14.910]I'll skip ahead just a smidge in here.
[00:17:17.880]I don't wanna hear the ad.
[00:17:21.540]Sorry.
[00:17:30.035]Come on.
[00:17:31.664]Oh I'm not restarting.
[00:17:44.035][Actor In Commercial] My first year teaching,
[00:17:45.390]lesson planning was rough.
[00:17:46.860]Then I found Education.com and realized everything.
[00:17:50.574](friendly banter)
[00:17:52.710]Circle of Friends
[00:17:53.580]is a group of students with autism
[00:17:56.520]and our peer mentors.
[00:17:58.230]And we just practice social skills
[00:18:00.360]and do community outings
[00:18:02.490]and allow these kids to build this friendship
[00:18:04.710]that wouldn't happen naturally in a school setting.
[00:18:08.280]Circle of Friends is a beautiful partnership group
[00:18:12.540]that has many students together
[00:18:15.030]to work on learning social skills and other stuff
[00:18:19.230]and I love to like to hang out with everyone.
[00:18:22.110]It gives our students with autism
[00:18:24.180]a safe place to learn those skills.
[00:18:26.760]They don't feel intimidated
[00:18:28.200]and they don't feel like they don't belong there.
[00:18:31.050]It's all about inclusivity.
[00:18:32.910]In education about what autism is,
[00:18:35.040]how does it impact the student,
[00:18:36.810]and even the specific student,
[00:18:38.490]and then ways that they can support them
[00:18:40.290]in their classroom, on the playground, at lunch.
[00:18:43.680]It really just opens their eyes
[00:18:46.530]to what these kids go through on a day-to-day basis.
[00:18:49.980]It's really fun
[00:18:51.270]and you just get to hang around in the journey
[00:18:53.280]of being with Austin and seeing his improvement.
[00:18:55.770]He used to use an iPad to communicate with people
[00:18:58.200]and now you just get to see him grow
[00:19:00.360]and just talk to people.
[00:19:01.680]When I pass by his house I'm like, hi, Austin.
[00:19:03.690]He is kind of like, oh Jaeda, you know, just,
[00:19:06.240]it's like he checks on me whenever
[00:19:08.100]and you know it's, it's cool.
[00:19:10.290]I've kind of learned with him,
[00:19:11.910]you don't necessarily have to know how to teach
[00:19:14.130]but you have to have the heart that helps him
[00:19:17.190]or that can help somebody.
[00:19:18.960]And me and Austin like we're good friends.
[00:19:23.850]For our target student, it's giving him some peers
[00:19:27.480]that he knows that he can trust.
[00:19:29.490]They all are huge supports for him.
[00:19:32.400]I mean it spreads throughout
[00:19:34.331]that whole classroom environment.
[00:19:36.570]I just think the benefits are so huge
[00:19:39.000]for not just our target students
[00:19:41.520]but for your entire building.
[00:19:42.990]The more awareness that we continue to spread,
[00:19:45.000]the more accepting others are.
[00:19:46.740]It just benefits everyone.
[00:19:49.050]I've worked with this student for two years
[00:19:52.440]and today in the hallway he was greeting so many people
[00:19:55.440]and another teacher said he has come so far.
[00:19:58.500]It really brings students together.
[00:20:00.810]I enjoy being able to like talk to them as friends.
[00:20:03.390]I don't really see myself as a mentor.
[00:20:05.160]It's really like the highlight of my week, so yeah.
[00:20:08.940]First year here I was shy completely.
[00:20:11.460]I thought I didn't know anyone.
[00:20:13.650]But as soon as I joined Circle of Friends,
[00:20:16.200]I met seniors, juniors, and without Circle of Friends,
[00:20:19.170]I would probably never made the friends I have today.
[00:20:23.851](uplifting music)
[00:20:31.513](muffled speech)
[00:20:36.840]Okay, so that sheds a little light.
[00:20:38.940]I think we can echo all of those things
[00:20:41.310]those kids are saying.
[00:20:42.143]And we've had the opportunity to see that growth
[00:20:44.820]at our school as well.
[00:20:46.590]I've been in the school district for 27,
[00:20:50.062]or 22 years at Crete, and then I'm up until recently,
[00:20:53.760]I'd never seen some of our life skills kids
[00:20:56.880]and other kids that are in Circle of Friends,
[00:20:58.440]like attend prom or homecoming, and now they're going.
[00:21:01.050]They're taking their pictures with all the kids
[00:21:03.390]and they're going to basketball games
[00:21:04.980]and some of these kids have never been
[00:21:06.243]to a basketball game before
[00:21:08.280]and it's just really, really cool to see.
[00:21:10.260]There's no data or statistics but you can tell,
[00:21:14.340]you can feel that that growing.
[00:21:17.400]So our first session we would invite all of them
[00:21:20.367]that came to that informational meeting
[00:21:22.937]and if they were interested, they would say yes or no,
[00:21:26.227]you know, maybe they find out yet this isn't for me
[00:21:28.680]or I don't have the time to commit to this.
[00:21:30.840]So then we find the ones that want to commit to it
[00:21:32.670]and we invite them to the very first session
[00:21:34.590]and that's where we would kind of go over the expectations,
[00:21:39.480]hand out all the dates throughout the year,
[00:21:41.460]when we're going to meet,
[00:21:44.220]and give them a schedule of the events.
[00:21:46.770]We have one big event every month,
[00:21:48.930]one big meeting every month with everybody,
[00:21:50.850]and then each week we have groups doing lunch bunch
[00:21:54.480]with our focus students in the cafeteria.
[00:21:57.300]So when we first started this
[00:21:59.970]we would do a great big lunch with everybody
[00:22:02.102]because we maybe had 15 peers
[00:22:04.110]and four or five focus students.
[00:22:06.660]And so we would do lunch every week, like on Thursday.
[00:22:10.230]Well then it became too many
[00:22:12.102]and we couldn't do lunch together.
[00:22:12.935]So now we do pockets of lunch bunch
[00:22:14.760]and we meet as one big group once a month.
[00:22:19.200]But that first, those first meetings then are,
[00:22:22.680]we'll talk about all what we do during those meetings.
[00:22:25.290]And I think you just have to,
[00:22:26.640]every year it's been different for us.
[00:22:29.400]So you just have to figure out what works
[00:22:30.660]with your schedule.
[00:22:31.493]We have like a home base time during the middle of our day
[00:22:34.290]and we just like, that's the one say once a month
[00:22:39.117]and we don't do evenings because all of our kids
[00:22:41.760]are so busy.
[00:22:43.050]And then our focus students,
[00:22:44.550]sometimes won't have transportation to meetings.
[00:22:45.710]We do a few things in the evening but not regular meetings
[00:22:48.707]'cause we'll need to communicate that with (indistinct)
[00:22:51.393]and so forth.
[00:22:56.120]So some of the ideas and activities
[00:22:58.440]and those of you that have a group,
[00:22:59.607]you might be able to join in
[00:23:01.140]and kind of share your things too.
[00:23:03.873]The lunch bunch has been really good.
[00:23:05.720]We just use SignUpGenius and they sign up.
[00:23:09.833]We require at least two I think throughout the year.
[00:23:13.860]Some people sign up for every week, at least once a month,
[00:23:18.237]but we ask our students to kind of give some input
[00:23:21.420]on what they would like to do.
[00:23:23.364]I live just a mile out of town,
[00:23:24.720]so we've thrown everybody on a bus
[00:23:26.850]and gone out to my funny farm.
[00:23:28.860]I call it the funny farm 'cause I have random animals
[00:23:30.810]like donkeys and goats and chickens.
[00:23:34.800]So we've done that before too.
[00:23:36.180]Just something fun that was inexpensive
[00:23:38.550]and the kids just get out.
[00:23:43.230]We've gone to the, no we didn't go to the zoo,
[00:23:44.790]We had a nice zoo trip planned right before Covid happened.
[00:23:47.730]We've done a bowling outing a few times
[00:23:50.246]and the kids like that.
[00:23:55.080]Well I did wanna say (indistinct).
[00:23:59.460]Circle of Friends doesn't have to cost money.
[00:24:01.620]There's a lot of activities and things that you can do
[00:24:03.840]that are, it's free.
[00:24:05.400]Like you don't have to have money for it.
[00:24:11.220]I guess, I mean that's just really don't hold back
[00:24:14.580]because you think that you need to have all these costs.
[00:24:17.160]The kids don't know, they don't care.
[00:24:18.600]And there's also people in your school that maybe donations.
[00:24:22.194]We've gotten a lot of donations, like pumpkins before.
[00:24:24.170]So there's ways to do it without there being a cost.
[00:24:28.800]One thing that really took off
[00:24:30.420]was we did a little thing at basketball halftime.
[00:24:33.323]We had some of our focus students one v. one
[00:24:37.014]with some of our athletes
[00:24:38.520]and that was pretty well attended
[00:24:43.440]and the kids really liked that.
[00:24:46.200]And then we already kind of talked about the dances.
[00:24:48.300]We don't have (indistinct) for Circle of Friends
[00:24:50.280]but we are (indistinct).
[00:24:51.690]Kids really make sure these kids feel included
[00:24:54.174]and they do attend the dance.
[00:24:56.640]That's just a fun time.
[00:24:57.930]We all go to dance and have a good time.
[00:25:04.710]Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:05.640]Here's a list of some activities that we have tried.
[00:25:12.600]I think we'd probably do all of them again.
[00:25:15.160]We do try to mix it up so it's not the same.
[00:25:23.148]I think some of the easiest ones
[00:25:24.777]and some of the favorite ones
[00:25:25.610]are these encouraging notes to staff.
[00:25:27.390]So the students, they spend time making cards
[00:25:29.637]and we have pictures of our Circle of Friends group
[00:25:32.970]and then they, after they're done, they get to go around
[00:25:36.990]and they pass it on to the teacher
[00:25:38.520]and they kind of have like free reign in the school
[00:25:41.700]during this lunchtime, which not all students have,
[00:25:44.100]so like I think that's kinda cool
[00:25:45.990]because they can kinda come and go wherever they want
[00:25:49.137]and they go and they search out for teachers
[00:25:50.640]and the custodians and the paras and the kitchen staff
[00:25:55.380]and they love getting these notes.
[00:25:56.880]And so that's a cool thing.
[00:25:59.067]And the scavenger hunt in the school,
[00:26:01.200]that was when they had to go around with their group
[00:26:03.628]and especially with cell phones,
[00:26:04.620]you're not supposed to have phones,
[00:26:05.850]but they could have their phones,
[00:26:07.020]and then they would go around
[00:26:08.160]and they had to find the clues and get the pictures
[00:26:10.860]and it was crazy and it was timed
[00:26:13.470]and they were running around
[00:26:14.700]and I think everybody thought what's going on?
[00:26:16.350]But they really enjoyed that.
[00:26:18.729]So I mean, it's time to get creative and we have ideas.
[00:26:22.107]And we also had a lot of fun pictures
[00:26:23.790]from that too.
[00:26:24.940](muffled speech)
[00:26:29.940]Oh we also have made crafts and then take them to,
[00:26:32.430]we do a little field trip walk over
[00:26:34.320]to like our care center, or Tabitha Garden Square,
[00:26:39.750]a retirement homes and the residents there.
[00:26:42.630]It just kind of extends that inclusion
[00:26:44.850]and they absolutely love it.
[00:26:46.530]So that's been fun.
[00:26:50.108]But one thing we do at our meeting that I think helps keep
[00:26:53.490]so some of our peers that are in it are friends
[00:26:55.260]and so they like to sometimes clump together.
[00:26:58.890]We kind of once in a while, we remind them
[00:27:00.810]of the purpose here and we try to scatter out
[00:27:03.660]our focus students and make sure we have peers
[00:27:08.250]not assigned to, but we kind of group them,
[00:27:10.710]and that helps a little bit.
[00:27:12.060]Were they can still be with their friends
[00:27:13.350]but they're also making sure they're including
[00:27:15.117]the focus student.
[00:27:19.820]And I forgot what I was gonna say with that.
[00:27:20.850]Oh the connection circle.
[00:27:22.350]That's a really good way to start
[00:27:24.150]because they're kids at the end of the year
[00:27:26.400]that remember what other kids say.
[00:27:28.230]And it could've been a focus student,
[00:27:29.220]it could've been a peer,
[00:27:30.660]but do you all use connection circles?
[00:27:34.110]Or would you like to hear a little bit more about that?
[00:27:36.190]Hear more?
[00:27:37.023]Okay, I'll let Jessie talk about that.
[00:27:40.380]I'm a wanderer (indistinct).
[00:27:42.870]The connection circle, it's something I learned
[00:27:44.850]in one of my grad classes from a teacher at Lincoln High
[00:27:48.960]and we all get in a circle
[00:27:52.260]and the rules of a connection circle
[00:27:53.730]are that you cannot talk when somebody else is talking
[00:27:57.660]and that you're listening
[00:27:59.160]and that what is said in the connection circle,
[00:28:01.080]stays in the connection circle.
[00:28:02.880]And none of the questions that we're asking
[00:28:04.395]are that serious.
[00:28:05.790]But if you want to, you have to start simple
[00:28:08.220]because everybody needs to build that confidence
[00:28:10.230]with each other.
[00:28:11.640]But it might be a question of you say your name,
[00:28:13.860]I'm Jessie Meinke and a question that day
[00:28:15.450]might be like what's your favorite thing
[00:28:17.400]to eat for breakfast?
[00:28:18.750]So I would say my name, I'm Jessie Meinke,
[00:28:21.210]my favorite thing to eat for breakfast is waffles.
[00:28:23.894]And you go to the next one.
[00:28:25.080]And we have a little object, it varies.
[00:28:28.110]During Covid we didn't pass an object
[00:28:29.880]but now you pass something and you're holding the object,
[00:28:33.225]that's when you get to talk.
[00:28:34.640]So everybody shares.
[00:28:37.020]Once everybody's done then you make those connections.
[00:28:40.560]I might say, oh hey Dawn,
[00:28:42.840]I heard that you said you like yogurt for breakfast,
[00:28:44.905]I really like yogurt too.
[00:28:46.334]And then you make a connection
[00:28:47.843]and just one person's talking at a time.
[00:28:50.337]But it gives everybody an opportunity to share.
[00:28:53.850]And man, we've heard some amazing things from kids
[00:28:57.270]during those times.
[00:29:00.450]Start simple like your favorite color
[00:29:02.220]or what you like to eat because that gives kids confidence
[00:29:04.620]with everybody can have an answer to that.
[00:29:07.230]And then sometimes like towards the end of the year
[00:29:10.320]we might ask what was your favorite memory
[00:29:12.060]of Circle of Friends?
[00:29:13.080]Or what was something you did
[00:29:14.760]like maybe in the middle of the year,
[00:29:16.230]what was something you did this week to promote inclusion
[00:29:20.040]or you know, something like that
[00:29:21.720]where everybody can still have an answer.
[00:29:23.550]So you kind of just grow.
[00:29:24.660]You don't start with something really difficult
[00:29:26.675]where they're worried about being judged for their answer.
[00:29:28.710]And then as that confidence grows
[00:29:31.380]and you can kind of increase those levels of questions.
[00:29:37.620]I do feel bad, one time was,
[00:29:39.420]what's your favorite flavor of ice cream?
[00:29:41.430]I thought that was safe.
[00:29:42.960]And another student said, I can't eat ice cream.
[00:29:45.513]I'm lactose intolerant.
[00:29:48.425]No, I'm so sorry.
[00:29:50.025]How about something else that you like to eat though?
[00:29:52.350]I mean I thought it was a safe question, but.
[00:30:00.197]Here's a little video that we kind of threw together.
[00:30:03.450]We're not very high tech at Crete High School in our
[00:30:05.347]Circle of Friends group,
[00:30:06.660]but we probably have students that could have done better.
[00:30:09.060]So this is just this little thing,
[00:30:10.710]a little video that we threw together about what kids
[00:30:14.653]like about Circle.
[00:30:24.717](indistinct)
[00:30:32.606]We have to be patient.
[00:30:38.318]It seemed to work last (indistinct).
[00:30:42.918](upbeat music)
[00:30:51.703]Why do you like Circle of Friends?
[00:30:53.880]Because like we get to hang out with other people
[00:30:56.820]and just enjoy our time.
[00:31:00.270]No that's good.
[00:31:01.260]How do you like Circle of Friends?
[00:31:03.133]I like Circle of Friends because I get to socialize
[00:31:05.933]with different people and I get to do fun activities
[00:31:09.540]at the same time.
[00:31:11.280](upbeat music)
[00:31:17.280]What do you like about Circle of Friends?
[00:31:19.890]I like hanging out with people I don't know.
[00:31:22.169]Getting to know them and all of that.
[00:31:24.300]Yeah and getting to see people
[00:31:25.680]that you don't usually see every day.
[00:31:29.938](upbeat music)
[00:31:36.401]Why do you guys like Circle of Friends?
[00:31:38.040]I like Circle of Friends 'cause I get to hang out
[00:31:40.170]with Angel and have fun with him.
[00:31:42.579]I also like Circle of Friends
[00:31:43.859]'cause I get to hang out with Angel
[00:31:45.210]and it was fun making pumpkins with him.
[00:31:48.139]Okay, now ask him.
[00:31:50.087]Angel, what's your favorite thing about Circle of Friends?
[00:31:53.820]I like (iPad speaking).
[00:31:59.966]Yeah.
[00:32:00.799]That's cool!
[00:32:02.488](upbeat music)
[00:32:07.210]Girls, what do you like best?
[00:32:09.120]Or what's your favorite thing about Circle of Friends?
[00:32:11.869]I like how it's very inclusive
[00:32:14.430]and I've learned to be very patient.
[00:32:18.193]My favorite thing about Circle of Friends
[00:32:20.070]is being able to meet new people.
[00:32:25.099](Juana laughing)
[00:32:25.932]Hi, Juana.
[00:32:27.789]I like hanging out with my friends.
[00:32:31.260]And Juana, do you like Circle of Friends?
[00:32:34.149](upbeat music)
[00:32:47.850]I think the the cool thing for for us to see
[00:32:51.090]is our Circle of Friends group might be,
[00:32:53.670]what is it now, 40 peers and 10 focus students.
[00:32:57.150]Something like that, roughly 50 kids.
[00:33:00.420]But the way it's grown throughout the school,
[00:33:02.790]the kids are not in Circle of Friends
[00:33:04.380]have really embraced it as well.
[00:33:06.240]And they almost probably feel a little left out
[00:33:11.130]that they're not.
[00:33:11.963]But you don't have to be in the group
[00:33:13.830]to provide the inclusion.
[00:33:15.870]We're both getting to do Unified Track this year
[00:33:20.160]and kids from all over just gravitated toward it.
[00:33:24.197]So you said that
[00:33:26.681]40 regular students about?
[00:33:29.086]What the ratio that you had?
[00:33:32.037]That's a really good question.
[00:33:33.540]Oh yes. The question is,
[00:33:35.580]she said we have about 40 peers
[00:33:37.260]and then approximately eight to ten focus students.
[00:33:39.930]Do we have that many?
[00:33:41.214](muffled speech)
[00:33:42.300]Oh, six focus students, sorry.
[00:33:45.330]I don't know if there's a real ratio,
[00:33:46.920]but I know last year we split our groups into A and B.
[00:33:50.730]So each focus student would go every week
[00:33:53.490]and then our peers would go every other week.
[00:33:57.480]And so that got to be really confusing now
[00:33:59.107]'cause if the kid wasn't there like the next week,
[00:34:01.437]and so forth.
[00:34:02.270]So this year we just have done one big room.
[00:34:05.220]And so we're talking about narrowing that down
[00:34:08.580]and the thing is these kids are busy too,
[00:34:11.430]so they don't get to every week.
[00:34:13.080]So we don't always have that many there.
[00:34:16.595]I wouldn't say that really answered your question.
[00:34:18.504](crosstalk)
[00:34:20.273]Do you have more so that kids
[00:34:21.630]can switch in and out?
[00:34:22.864](crosstalk)
[00:34:25.260]Okay, but when everybody is there,
[00:34:28.170]it is difficult when you have a lot of the peers
[00:34:31.320]and your focus students, I do like those little
[00:34:35.490]to smaller close-knit groups.
[00:34:38.760]But that's us keep, we keep trying different things
[00:34:41.640]every year and then we're like, okay,
[00:34:43.020]that maybe wasn't the best, so we might revamp it
[00:34:45.480]for next year.
[00:34:47.250]This might be a good point to introduce
[00:34:49.380]the virtual learning community, if you wanna
[00:34:51.240]open up that link,
[00:34:53.790]because I can talk more about that, the size of the group.
[00:34:56.130]That's the way that Dawn and Jessie do their group.
[00:34:58.530]There's some Circle of Friends groups that have
[00:35:01.260]one focus student and three peers.
[00:35:04.080]So you can do small groups too.
[00:35:05.520]And I'm gonna show you where you can learn more about that.
[00:35:08.370]And then we will take questions and answers at the end,
[00:35:11.520]which is, we'll have plenty of time for that.
[00:35:13.860]But our website, our virtual learning community
[00:35:16.710]will probably maybe spark some new questions for you.
[00:35:20.340]But this is what we have.
[00:35:21.600]It's free for anybody to use.
[00:35:23.400]You can do a Circle of Friends group.
[00:35:24.810]Now remember there's a lot of us that did Circle of Friends
[00:35:27.090]before we had any of this, like we were just flying blind.
[00:35:30.390]But you guys have all of these great resources for you.
[00:35:34.800]If you will check, why don't you click on
[00:35:36.570]the about Circle of Friends link first,
[00:35:38.790]if you would do that Jessie,
[00:35:40.170]I'll just kind of talk you through it.
[00:35:42.270]And then like I said, for those of you that are virtual,
[00:35:44.400]you can go ahead and type your questions in the chat
[00:35:46.680]and anybody that is in person, just hang on to that.
[00:35:49.380]And then Jessie and Dawn will call on you at the end.
[00:35:52.650]So on this page, the about Circle of Friends,
[00:35:55.080]there's two training webinars, because I know a lot of you,
[00:35:57.540]this is such a quick overview,
[00:35:58.950]we just don't really have time to get into all
[00:36:00.900]the nuts and bolts about training how to do it.
[00:36:03.690]But we have two webinars,
[00:36:05.010]they're about 30, 35 minutes apiece on the site
[00:36:07.781]it's called, there's webinar part one and part two.
[00:36:11.010]So I would encourage you if you're interested
[00:36:13.020]in learning things like how do I choose my focus students?
[00:36:16.140]How many kids do I have in a group?
[00:36:19.080]How do I choose my peer mentors?
[00:36:20.970]How do I communicate with parents?
[00:36:22.800]What do I do at meetings?
[00:36:24.240]All of that information is in these webinars.
[00:36:27.300]And if you click on can you, yeah,
[00:36:29.490]and then there's a little bit of video there
[00:36:30.960]about the peer mediated intervention,
[00:36:33.630]which is what Circle of Friends falls under the umbrella of.
[00:36:36.840]And then at the bottom there's the research study links
[00:36:39.180]that I talked about in that earlier slide.
[00:36:41.760]But if you'll scroll up just a tiny bit
[00:36:44.100]and would you open up the next steps?
[00:36:46.020]It's a link there, you're almost, down a little bit.
[00:36:49.200]It's right next to the second.
[00:36:50.550]Yeah, it says use this next steps planning guide.
[00:36:53.580]So to really learn the nuts and bolts how to implement
[00:36:57.120]a group, what I would encourage you to do is,
[00:37:00.210]as you watch the webinars that will get into
[00:37:03.120]all the specific things that you need to know
[00:37:05.370]is to fill out this guide.
[00:37:07.050]Because there's certain things about all Circle of Friends,
[00:37:10.620]whether it's a first grade group or a high school group.
[00:37:13.770]You wanna make sure that you meet, for example,
[00:37:15.630]you wanna make sure that you meet every week no matter what.
[00:37:18.690]That's one of my rules.
[00:37:19.920]Meet every week no matter what.
[00:37:21.810]If you're meeting less than that,
[00:37:23.160]your kids aren't going to have enough time to coalesce,
[00:37:25.410]get to know each other and form those friendships.
[00:37:28.080]But that's just a example.
[00:37:30.060]But what this next steps document does is it helps you
[00:37:33.870]individualize your group because a large group like Jessie
[00:37:37.260]and Dawn have done may not work for you at all.
[00:37:39.690]And actually I encourage people that are brand new
[00:37:42.630]to think about doing a super small group.
[00:37:44.880]It can be tough because people will say, well I have
[00:37:48.240]eight focus students that really need this group.
[00:37:51.060]You may not be able, depending on your resources,
[00:37:53.790]to be able to start with eight groups
[00:37:56.400]or a large enough group with eight focus students
[00:37:59.157]and 15 peer mentors.
[00:38:01.320]You might not be able to do that.
[00:38:02.610]So you can individualize it however you want to do it.
[00:38:06.270]Your groups can change over time depending on your needs.
[00:38:09.990]But those two webinars will take you through step by step,
[00:38:13.110]all of those things.
[00:38:14.490]And then do your planning guide at the same time.
[00:38:17.010]And it takes you through these questions.
[00:38:18.930]And by the end of it,
[00:38:20.010]by the time you've filled this out
[00:38:21.540]and by the time you've listened to the webinars,
[00:38:23.670]you'll be all set with a plan to start your group.
[00:38:26.070]I'd like to say there's no right or wrong way to do a group,
[00:38:29.730]as you'll see through our virtual learning community,
[00:38:31.920]because what that is made up of is things that everyone
[00:38:34.650]has done and they share it.
[00:38:35.820]That's what the virtual learning community is.
[00:38:38.100]You'll see that different people do things different ways
[00:38:40.590]and that's fine, okay?
[00:38:42.120]So I just want you to know that that's in there.
[00:38:43.830]Also for new facilitators,
[00:38:46.170]every fall we do a training for new,
[00:38:48.960]it's a virtual training.
[00:38:50.280]And so what you want to do is get your name on the list.
[00:38:54.510]Megan Misegadis is the one that maintains that list.
[00:38:58.770]Thank goodness it's not me.
[00:39:00.150]And so if you will email us,
[00:39:02.280]we'll show you our contacts,
[00:39:03.510]you have all that information in your conference
[00:39:06.086]information.
[00:39:07.020]But anyway, let us know and say, hey,
[00:39:09.120]we might wanna start a group next year,
[00:39:10.770]put us on the list.
[00:39:11.820]And then we'll send you out emails
[00:39:13.830]and you can get on the list now,
[00:39:15.420]even if you don't plan on starting a group until next fall,
[00:39:17.880]which is probably the case.
[00:39:19.410]So or if maybe there's a new hire that's gonna come
[00:39:22.080]into your district that will be in charge
[00:39:23.700]of the Circle of Friends group for that school,
[00:39:26.040]get their, you know, just for now,
[00:39:26.873]put your name on the list
[00:39:28.620]and then you can get them on it after.
[00:39:30.480]So they're welcome.
[00:39:31.320]But just so you know, the training,
[00:39:33.690]we basically go through those two webinars
[00:39:35.760]and we have you complete this next steps sheet.
[00:39:37.920]So keep that in mind.
[00:39:39.900]All right, if you go back, Jessie, to the.
[00:39:42.180]I need to.
[00:39:46.200]So those are there in the about Circle of Friends section.
[00:39:49.890]If you go.
[00:39:51.234]Can you slide this up, Terry, so I can,
[00:39:58.503]which, oh no, I need this bar.
[00:40:01.650]You can move that bar, put your cursor on it
[00:40:03.420]and slide that bar down.
[00:40:04.500]Or you can go to the three dots and make it disappear.
[00:40:08.100]I just want it gone.
[00:40:10.736]Thank you.
[00:40:13.320]Two more down, there you go.
[00:40:15.057]I'm so rusty at Zoom. I know.
[00:40:17.730]I used to live on it and know it's like
[00:40:19.564]Like where is that?
[00:40:21.845](crosstalk)
[00:40:23.130]Okay, go to the home screen right now,
[00:40:26.370]the home page, yeah.
[00:40:28.020]So the support that we give throughout the year,
[00:40:31.377]and you can read all this,
[00:40:32.520]I'm just gonna briefly go over it.
[00:40:33.960]You can go and explore this site yourself.
[00:40:36.810]But we do monthly question and answers.
[00:40:39.120]They go from 3:45 till 4:15 or however long people want,
[00:40:43.140]it's after school.
[00:40:44.280]But you can show up to that if you have a question
[00:40:46.290]like, you know, my group's not coming together,
[00:40:48.150]people aren't showing up,
[00:40:49.290]I'm really stuck on getting started,
[00:40:51.180]I don't know what to do with any question you have,
[00:40:53.520]you're welcome to come to that.
[00:40:54.810]On this home page is also my contact information.
[00:40:58.234]So you don't have to wait until the once-a-month
[00:41:00.750]Zoom question and answer session, you can come at any time.
[00:41:05.130]Megan's contact information is there too.
[00:41:07.770]So we also have newsletters each month that we put out
[00:41:11.760]and we put that on the home page so you can go in
[00:41:14.430]and read about the different things that,
[00:41:16.050]and in these newsletters,
[00:41:19.260]people that are running groups across Nebraska
[00:41:21.570]are sharing success stories,
[00:41:23.640]resources that work for them,
[00:41:25.950]questions and answers, that kind of a thing.
[00:41:27.900]So there's links in there also
[00:41:30.390]for all of the monthly newsletters that we have.
[00:41:33.480]And finally, the other part of support that we offer,
[00:41:36.300]and all of this is free, is we do $50 gift card drawings.
[00:41:40.200]So if you submit an idea,
[00:41:43.800]something that's worked well at a meeting,
[00:41:46.440]a success story, anything like that,
[00:41:48.480]your name goes into a drawing for a $50 Amazon gift card.
[00:41:51.930]And we do those once a month.
[00:41:53.610]So we don't get a lot of people that,
[00:41:55.980]I mean we always get some each month,
[00:41:57.300]but let me just put it this way,
[00:41:58.440]your odds are good of winning.
[00:41:59.880]So you just (indistinct) your ideas.
[00:42:01.980]And that's all on the home page there.
[00:42:04.500]All right, how about ideas and resources?
[00:42:07.320]Can you click on that one?
[00:42:10.650]So there's, in this dropdown screen,
[00:42:12.960]there's awareness and bully prevention,
[00:42:15.060]social skills teaching, activity ideas, fundraising.
[00:42:18.390]You don't need any money
[00:42:19.410]and you don't have to do any fundraising.
[00:42:21.390]But if you're into that, you can.
[00:42:23.430]For our group, any school club at school
[00:42:26.490]can work concessions and you get half the money.
[00:42:28.980]So we would put that into our Circle of Friends account.
[00:42:31.350]What do we use it for?
[00:42:32.760]If we did outside activities,
[00:42:35.100]and by the way that came up a little bit
[00:42:36.780]in Dawn and Jessie's talk.
[00:42:38.400]You don't have to do outside-of-school activities.
[00:42:41.130]Typically older kids groups will tend to do that,
[00:42:43.890]but you don't have to.
[00:42:45.300]But we would use it for the kids who couldn't afford to go
[00:42:48.030]to say, you know, the haunted house farm or whatever.
[00:42:50.730]We would pay for that for them.
[00:42:52.410]Anyway, there's videos in there talking about that
[00:42:54.960]and ideas of what other people do.
[00:42:56.610]So that's in there, but you don't have to raise a dime
[00:42:59.220]if you don't wanna raise fund money,
[00:43:00.630]you don't wanna deal with money, you don't have to.
[00:43:03.630]But anyway, some of the things you'll do at your meetings
[00:43:06.120]are awareness and bully prevention.
[00:43:08.370]So click on the awareness, would you click on that one?
[00:43:12.330]And what you'll see here are things,
[00:43:14.010]these are all ideas shared from all the Circle of Friends
[00:43:16.620]facilitators across the state of Nebraska.
[00:43:19.290]We embed everything in here.
[00:43:20.940]So the materials are all here for you.
[00:43:23.610]You don't have to go searching for them.
[00:43:25.740]If you'll scroll down a little bit, you'll see just,
[00:43:28.170]yeah, just a little bit.
[00:43:29.310]You'll see what different schools are doing in the news.
[00:43:31.860]There's embedded with videos that you can use
[00:43:34.020]to do autism awareness or any kind of awareness,
[00:43:37.860]learning differences awareness.
[00:43:39.660]There's things for all age levels, elementary,
[00:43:42.240]middle, and high school.
[00:43:43.920]So just so that you know that's there.
[00:43:45.960]If when you choose to do awareness,
[00:43:47.520]we always do an awareness piece.
[00:43:49.800]Typically we might start at the beginning of the year
[00:43:52.410]and I just want kids to know that we're more alike
[00:43:54.720]than we are different and you know, we do activities
[00:43:58.350]and all kinds of ideas are in here for that.
[00:44:00.780]It just really starts building a very supportive community.
[00:44:04.050]But everything's here for you.
[00:44:05.850]And I'm really proud of this community
[00:44:08.040]and I'm very proud of the efforts
[00:44:10.170]of all the people across the state
[00:44:11.610]who have contributed to this because it makes my life
[00:44:14.760]as a facilitator much easier.
[00:44:16.860]It's like, oh, what are we gonna do this year
[00:44:17.823]when we make our plan?
[00:44:19.200]Oh, let's go to the website and see what we could use
[00:44:21.990]for our (crosstalk)
[00:44:23.580]and everything is right there for you to choose from.
[00:44:25.500]And there's a lot on there.
[00:44:27.390]All right, what's the next dropdown
[00:44:28.770]into the ideas and resources?
[00:44:30.540]There's awareness, so you'll do awareness at some
[00:44:32.490]and then yeah, click on social skills teaching.
[00:44:35.130]Another thing you'll do at some of your meetings.
[00:44:37.320]What the heck?
[00:44:38.550]Wait a minute.
[00:44:40.830]I wonder.
[00:44:42.480]Lemme try one, I'm gonna try it again.
[00:44:45.060]Yeah.
[00:44:46.380]It's just, well.
[00:44:48.333]Well that is really weird.
[00:44:49.650]I'm gonna have to go to the website
[00:44:51.060]because that is loaded with all kinds of resources
[00:44:53.430]and materials for you to use for social skills teaching.
[00:44:56.610]And I'll go in and see what the problem is with that.
[00:44:58.530]I have no idea.
[00:44:59.910]But there's all kinds of links and resources
[00:45:02.460]and things to use and stories from Nebraska facilitators,
[00:45:05.670]group facilitators who are sharing what they're doing in
[00:45:08.700]their groups.
[00:45:09.533]So that's there, gosh, that's a problem.
[00:45:11.400]I'm gonna have to go in and fix that
[00:45:12.480]because there's a lot there I don't wanna lose
[00:45:14.670]'cause there's so many great ideas that have been shared.
[00:45:17.070]How about clicking on activity ideas?
[00:45:20.940]Another thing that you'll do.
[00:45:22.080]Okay, so these are, if you want to do some
[00:45:23.730]out-of-school activities.
[00:45:25.500]I don't, yeah, and also there's meeting activities as well,
[00:45:29.220]different things that you can do.
[00:45:30.330]So scroll down just a little bit.
[00:45:32.610]You'll see that there's probably five or six or more
[00:45:35.280]years worth of sharing.
[00:45:37.020]And we love when people share their pictures
[00:45:39.120]because it's just really fun to see
[00:45:40.740]what all the kids are doing.
[00:45:41.850]And this is where I got ideas
[00:45:44.430]as from what everybody else is doing.
[00:45:46.890]So we, whenever there's free materials,
[00:45:49.050]we put them in there so that you can see that.
[00:45:52.328]Okay, so we do awareness at meetings,
[00:45:53.760]we teach social skills at meetings,
[00:45:55.800]there's activities, sometimes activities take place
[00:45:57.960]on the recess playground, okay?
[00:45:59.420]It can be as simple as that.
[00:46:01.380]All right, what else is in that dropdown?
[00:46:04.140]I wanna get to questions in just a minute.
[00:46:07.110]We're gonna talk about fundraising.
[00:46:08.070]There's social emotional learning literature lessons.
[00:46:10.830]I have used books and videos before to teach those skills.
[00:46:13.830]And then virtual meeting ideas,
[00:46:15.270]that's more for during the days of Covid.
[00:46:17.370]But there are social emotional learning lessons in here
[00:46:19.740]using very popular literature choices for students.
[00:46:22.800]And there's ways and activities that you can use those
[00:46:25.050]at your meetings too.
[00:46:26.520]Read a book, do the activities, click on the link,
[00:46:29.010]everything is provided for you.
[00:46:31.260]So when you're thinking about what do I wanna do
[00:46:33.450]for my meetings this year?
[00:46:34.830]And you have a lot of options and a lot of choice,
[00:46:37.560]go to the website and see what other people are doing.
[00:46:39.870]And you don't have to do what they've done,
[00:46:41.070]you can invent your own stuff, it doesn't matter.
[00:46:43.350]And we would encourage you to please share with us
[00:46:45.480]when you do something that's been successful,
[00:46:47.130]because we will put it on the site
[00:46:49.080]and we will enter your name into that $50 a month,
[00:46:52.408]every month, Amazon gift card drawing.
[00:46:56.130]Paperwork.
[00:46:57.390]Would you click on that link?
[00:46:58.620]The contact information's there, you'll,
[00:47:00.450]it's all over the site how to get ahold of us.
[00:47:02.728]So there are, Dawn and Jessie talked about
[00:47:06.900]you had a form, a Google Form that you use.
[00:47:09.240]Maybe we'll get that and put that up here too.
[00:47:11.130]So you could, if you don't mind guys,
[00:47:12.570]we could put it on this parent,
[00:47:14.160]'cause everybody does things differently.
[00:47:15.510]But open up the focus student parent permission slip link
[00:47:19.140]if you would.
[00:47:21.330]These are just ideas of forms you can use.
[00:47:24.120]So one is, if you know for the focus student,
[00:47:27.960]you can go ahead and you know, you can use that,
[00:47:30.360]you can modify that.
[00:47:31.710]Some people use paper copies, some people send emails,
[00:47:34.200]some people send phone calls home.
[00:47:36.120]Just so that parents know that their child
[00:47:37.740]will be in the group.
[00:47:38.970]There's also another permission form for peer mentors.
[00:47:42.900]There's some Spanish forms in there.
[00:47:45.330]And you can either use them or you can adapt them
[00:47:47.580]any way you want.
[00:47:48.600]And I think the next steps, that training guide,
[00:47:51.330]is also on that page too.
[00:47:53.910]If you'll click on the more link.
[00:47:56.190]Yeah.
[00:48:01.080]There's a page of very inspiring success stories.
[00:48:05.010]So I just want you to know that that's there.
[00:48:07.470]And if you're having a rough day,
[00:48:09.630]go ahead and go in there and read some of those stories.
[00:48:11.940]There's a whole, if you scroll down just a little bit,
[00:48:14.160]you'll see there's some from schools
[00:48:15.960]all across our state and all grade levels
[00:48:20.130]and you can read about what's happening at other places.
[00:48:22.980]So that's all in there.
[00:48:24.120]We love pictures.
[00:48:24.953]If you share something to go on our site,
[00:48:27.540]you don't have to send a picture, but you can.
[00:48:30.420]And then the last thing in that more link is parents.
[00:48:34.110]If there's parents in the audience, I can't see anybody,
[00:48:36.660]I'm sure you're all gorgeous
[00:48:38.640]and you all look like movie stars, in my mind
[00:48:40.800]y'all do anyway.
[00:48:42.780]If you want, if you need, if you don't know
[00:48:44.610]if your school has a group or you want a group
[00:48:47.188]how to get it into your child's IEP
[00:48:49.320]there's information here for parents.
[00:48:51.390]So you can go ahead and read that and get some ideas
[00:48:54.690]if you want a group for your child
[00:48:56.070]and you're not sure where they're with that.
[00:48:58.680]So that is our virtual learning community.
[00:49:02.550]It's on the slide, the URL for that is on there.
[00:49:06.960]So I would encourage anybody interested in learning
[00:49:09.240]the specifics about how to do a group
[00:49:11.610]to see what other people are doing around the state
[00:49:13.680]to go into this website.
[00:49:15.570]If you have questions,
[00:49:17.010]you can reach out to me anytime, Mary Schlieder.
[00:49:19.855]If you have questions about how Dawn and Jessie
[00:49:22.170]are doing their program, you can go ahead and ask them.
[00:49:26.070]Let me go ahead and see if there's any other questions
[00:49:28.770]in the chat.
[00:49:29.603]I know that one question was how big is your group?
[00:49:32.820]It's as big as you want it to be.
[00:49:34.348](Mary chuckling)
[00:49:35.181]And I go into a lot of detail in the training webinar
[00:49:38.250]in the about Circle of Friends tab
[00:49:40.530]of the virtual learning community.
[00:49:42.630]So you can hear all the different options
[00:49:44.850]and you can choose the one that's best for you
[00:49:46.770]in your circumstance,
[00:49:48.736]All right?
[00:49:50.520]Other questions?
[00:49:52.200]If you are virtual and have a question,
[00:49:54.420]go ahead and type it in the chat.
[00:49:56.310]If you are an in-person and you have a question
[00:49:58.770]for either me or Dawn or Jessie, now is the time.
[00:50:03.840]Go ahead.
[00:50:05.308](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:50:31.500]So the question is, they have their first autistic student
[00:50:35.010]in a kindergarten classroom of about 20 students
[00:50:38.130]and she is wondering if they should just start their circle
[00:50:42.570]with just that classroom or include older students
[00:50:46.140]with that Circle of Friends.
[00:50:48.030]Mary, do you wanna?
[00:50:48.990]Yeah, sure, we talk about that in the training video,
[00:50:51.240]the webinar.
[00:50:52.260]There are Circle of Friends groups
[00:50:53.790]that are whole classroom groups
[00:50:55.410]and we talk about that in the webinar.
[00:50:56.940]The answer is yes, you could certainly do that.
[00:51:00.120]Would you recommend having older students
[00:51:03.360]involved as well?
[00:51:06.300]Either way, I've done both.
[00:51:08.340]For me, sometimes having older students in helps.
[00:51:10.950]So for example, I had an eighth grade girl
[00:51:12.840]who wasn't diagnosed with autism
[00:51:14.430]until she was in eighth grade
[00:51:15.570]and she did not receive support and training
[00:51:19.050]and all kinds of things in the meantime.
[00:51:20.550]And so she had kind of a toxic relationship with her peers,
[00:51:23.700]who quite frankly were a little tired of her by then.
[00:51:26.400]I started a Circle of Friends with those kids in that group
[00:51:29.610]and they were not very nice to her.
[00:51:32.250]And it's a longer story and we don't have time
[00:51:34.260]for me to tell it.
[00:51:35.280]So the next year when she started high school,
[00:51:37.500]I did a group with all older students
[00:51:39.900]and I could do that in the high school setting.
[00:51:41.520]And so that worked out beautifully.
[00:51:44.100]So it depends on your circumstance and your situation.
[00:51:47.100]One of the challenges,
[00:51:48.150]and I talk about this in the training webinars,
[00:51:50.130]is scheduling.
[00:51:51.450]So, you know, schools have very strict schedules
[00:51:54.060]and we're guided by those schedules.
[00:51:55.920]And if the, if the different grade levels
[00:51:58.830]aren't at the same, the kids have to be able to meet
[00:52:00.600]at the same time.
[00:52:01.710]So if you can make that work
[00:52:03.210]and you think older students would be great, absolutely.
[00:52:05.970]You can do all same age, you can do a mixture.
[00:52:08.940]We talk about that in the training webinars.
[00:52:12.690]And I can't say that one's better than another.
[00:52:14.910]I can't say a big group is better than a small group
[00:52:17.520]because a group is successful if you're meeting,
[00:52:20.970]your kids are all growing, you're feeling good about it.
[00:52:24.660]And I have seen groups done in so many different ways
[00:52:27.570]that are successful.
[00:52:28.620]So there really isn't a right or wrong way to do it.
[00:52:31.680]And I would encourage people to not stress about that.
[00:52:34.860]Just do something.
[00:52:36.450]You'll experiment, you'll change the way that you do it
[00:52:38.790]based on what's working and what's not working.
[00:52:41.040]And you'll be fine.
[00:52:45.600]Let me see if there's another question in the chat.
[00:52:47.280]We have another one here.
[00:52:48.840]There's a question in the chat, okay,
[00:52:50.130]let me do the chat question first.
[00:52:51.570]How long do you meet each time and does it change?
[00:52:55.230]It depends on your situation.
[00:52:57.090]So you have to decide when you wanna meet.
[00:52:59.400]Some people meet during lunch period
[00:53:01.200]and so your meetings will be,
[00:53:02.520]they'll meet once a week during lunch, lunch bunch,
[00:53:04.680]and so your meetings will be as long as your lunch period.
[00:53:07.740]In my school we had, what did we call it?
[00:53:10.108]I, oh my gosh, it was a school-wide activity period.
[00:53:16.260]There's another name for it, I'm sorry, I'm blanking on it.
[00:53:18.330]But there were no classes taught
[00:53:19.620]and that was a 30-minute period,
[00:53:21.330]so our meetings lasted 30 minutes.
[00:53:23.610]If you're only, 10 minutes is not going to be enough.
[00:53:26.370]Try to get to 30 minutes, 45 is better.
[00:53:28.980]It depends on your situation.
[00:53:30.900]So we talk about that in the webinars also, okay?
[00:53:34.140]So you can, you know, listen to the webinars
[00:53:36.240]and get some ideas, but you wanna do what works for you.
[00:53:39.540]I would say 10, 15 minutes is not long enough.
[00:53:42.240]See if you can find something.
[00:53:43.650]You'll learn in the webinar, some people meet before school.
[00:53:46.350]That would've never worked for us
[00:53:47.730]because we were a more rural school
[00:53:49.650]with many of our kids being bused in.
[00:53:51.870]So our kids weren't even arriving until 20 minutes
[00:53:53.970]before classes started.
[00:53:55.740]Other schools are different.
[00:53:56.880]So it depends on what works for you.
[00:53:58.860]In the training webinars, we give you lots of ideas
[00:54:01.440]and you pick.
[00:54:04.590]Other question?
[00:54:05.423]Yeah, we have another question here in the room.
[00:54:07.908](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:54:28.279]The question is, she's a para
[00:54:29.910]and she's been asked by parents to work
[00:54:31.620]with their teenage student over the summer
[00:54:34.530]and can she do this on a smaller scale,
[00:54:37.350]working with him over the summer?
[00:54:38.610]I guess my answer would be, yeah,
[00:54:40.740]you could find some peers and do like a smaller setting.
[00:54:43.530]What do you think, Mary?
[00:54:44.760]I highly recommend it actually, it'd be fun for everybody.
[00:54:48.360]Circle of Friends, we talk about it in a school setting.
[00:54:51.060]However, over the years I have consulted with folks
[00:54:54.840]who have implemented Circle of Friends
[00:54:56.280]in their church groups and their youth groups
[00:54:58.140]and in their Sunday School classes.
[00:55:01.140]They've done it, Omaha, what's the school there?
[00:55:04.410]Oh gosh, I'm just blanking out.
[00:55:06.030]College level.
[00:55:07.469]I've seen it done in just lots of different settings.
[00:55:10.080]So while we've, you know,
[00:55:11.130]the focus here has been on school settings.
[00:55:12.750]You absolutely can do that.
[00:55:14.310]And the beauty of it is that what you're doing
[00:55:16.980]is fostering a place.
[00:55:18.420]You can teach social skills,
[00:55:19.650]but then where are they going to practice
[00:55:21.000]those social skills?
[00:55:22.230]You want them, and I think that's the beauty
[00:55:23.820]of Circle of Friends, is that they now have an environment
[00:55:27.960]with a peer group that they can practice
[00:55:30.270]what they're learning.
[00:55:31.103]And the other benefit is that things pop up
[00:55:34.080]and with the Circle of Friends, as far as behaviors,
[00:55:36.360]things you cannot anticipate,
[00:55:37.950]particularly as kids get older,
[00:55:39.360]they master one set of social skills
[00:55:41.580]and then some new social skill demands arise
[00:55:44.100]that they have to learn all those ones too.
[00:55:46.380]Very different social skills that a kindergartner
[00:55:48.630]needs to learn and different for an eighth grader
[00:55:50.940]and a 12th grader, that kind of a thing.
[00:55:53.070]So we find happens is that when you develop this peer group,
[00:55:56.760]when something happens, like maybe the child's
[00:55:58.800]doing something inappropriate on the bus,
[00:56:00.450]I don't know, something.
[00:56:02.070]The peers can come and tell you and say, hey,
[00:56:04.230]you might wanna know Austin did this on the bus today.
[00:56:07.320]And you go, oh, I know that I need to talk to Austin
[00:56:11.040]and talk to him about why he can't, you know,
[00:56:13.500]touch people on the bus or pick his nose or whatever it is
[00:56:16.260]that they're doing.
[00:56:17.280]And so it opens up that line of communication
[00:56:19.830]by having that peer group.
[00:56:21.150]So I would say anytime you're working
[00:56:23.370]with a child on the spectrum,
[00:56:24.660]if you can incorporate part of the training is peer group,
[00:56:28.860]I think that's a benefit.
[00:56:30.990]Thank you.
[00:56:32.340]Any other questions?
[00:56:35.565]I don't see any here in the room.
[00:56:37.440]Okay, anything else in the chat?
[00:56:38.965]Oh wait, yes, we do.
[00:56:39.856]We have a question.
[00:56:41.306](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:56:55.830]Okay, she's a cheer coach at a school and there,
[00:56:58.920]she's just starting by cheer teams
[00:57:01.260]and she just wants to have some resources on that,
[00:57:03.177]and Jessie and I could talk to her when we're done here,
[00:57:05.580]if that works, is that okay?
[00:57:07.185]Or does anybody else have that same question?
[00:57:09.540]There's a, actually there's a website on NSAA,
[00:57:12.870]the Unified website, and that's probably
[00:57:15.960]where I would I direct you.
[00:57:16.793]'Cause I, we don't have any by cheer,
[00:57:17.940]but we have other Unified sports.
[00:57:20.445]But we can chat about it after.
[00:57:23.790]If you think of something, please contact us.
[00:57:26.250]You have our contact information.
[00:57:28.260]Get your, if you're interested in Circle of Friends
[00:57:30.060]for next school year, you wanna start learning about it now,
[00:57:32.520]get on the virtual learning community,
[00:57:34.560]shoot us an email and say, hey,
[00:57:36.180]I wanna get on the list for next year.
[00:57:37.680]And then we'll put you on now and you can start getting the,
[00:57:40.380]you know, looking at our, well,
[00:57:41.700]everything's on the website anyway.
[00:57:43.020]It's all there, so, yeah.
[00:57:45.685]Okay, we have another question, Mary.
[00:57:47.176]Okay, go ahead.
[00:57:49.356](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:57:53.898]Good question.
[00:57:54.731]So she asked if our Circle of Friends group
[00:57:56.610]changed every year.
[00:57:57.900]So it can.
[00:58:00.035]We put it out to everybody and just because
[00:58:02.580]they were in it last year doesn't mean
[00:58:04.080]they're automatically going to be in it this year.
[00:58:05.850]Especially if there was something that didn't work out
[00:58:08.520]real well or if they didn't attend the meetings
[00:58:10.200]or they weren't real invested into it.
[00:58:12.690]But a lot of times we found that most of them
[00:58:14.640]wanted to come back if they were active and involved.
[00:58:19.429](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:58:37.410]I'll let Mary.
[00:58:38.243]Mary, the question was, she has a student
[00:58:41.550]with the same group and it's been the same group
[00:58:43.470]several years.
[00:58:44.790]Would you recommend changing those members up
[00:58:47.057]or is that good just to keep the same group?
[00:58:51.990]It depends.
[00:58:52.872]I don't think there's a right or wrong on that one.
[00:58:55.500]If you want to expand the child's, you know, social network,
[00:58:59.070]you might include some other students.
[00:59:01.620]That's up to you, really.
[00:59:03.300]You know, as long as you have a place where the child
[00:59:05.100]feels safe, they're able to practice those social skills
[00:59:07.560]and continue to learn, great.
[00:59:09.600]You're doing a wonderful job.
[00:59:11.070]You, that's really up to you.
[00:59:12.780]Personal preference.
[00:59:14.700]Thank you.
[00:59:17.430]Yes, another question.
[00:59:19.346](audience member asking question, distorted)
[00:59:39.690]We never meet with just our peers, no.
[00:59:42.809](audience member talking, distorted)
[00:59:47.520]Mary, did you hear that question?
[00:59:50.010]Kind of.
[00:59:51.139]She said originally when she started,
[00:59:53.130]she would have the peers meet by themselves
[00:59:54.900]and then the focus students meet by themselves
[00:59:56.640]and then meet altogether.
[00:59:57.799](audience member clarifying question, distorted)
[01:00:12.179]Oh, okay.
[01:00:17.259]Yeah, are you ready for me to answer?
[01:00:22.590]Yup, we're ready for you, Mary.
[01:00:24.450]Can you hear me okay?
[01:00:25.950]Yup.
[01:00:26.783]Okay, there in the training webinars we talk about that.
[01:00:30.300]Some people choose to do peer-only groups.
[01:00:32.430]I have done peer-only group meetings, not groups.
[01:00:35.280]Wrong word, peer-only meetings,
[01:00:37.470]particularly at the beginning of the school year
[01:00:39.450]when I am introducing the concept to a new group of peers.
[01:00:42.960]And I, what I'll tell them is, you know,
[01:00:46.620]we're gonna start this.
[01:00:47.490]You're welcome to join if you'd like,
[01:00:49.070]let me tell you what the responsibilities are for you
[01:00:52.470]and what you know, what this is all about.
[01:00:54.370]And then you can come back next week if you want to.
[01:00:55.980]Maybe it's not for you right now, and that's fine.
[01:00:58.590]So, you know, I let them have the option of that.
[01:01:00.810]And then in the beginning, you might choose to do,
[01:01:04.320]one model is to meet once a week no matter what.
[01:01:08.190]And then if you have two people doing the group,
[01:01:10.770]say I always did a group with another special ed teacher
[01:01:13.140]and/or another para, so there were always two of us.
[01:01:15.930]So for some of the meetings you might choose once in a while
[01:01:19.230]to have a peer-only meeting where they can be honest
[01:01:22.770]and tell you, hey, he's doing this.
[01:01:24.300]Or he might, they might not share that information with you.
[01:01:27.270]I find that the peer-only meetings tend to be more necessary
[01:01:31.200]until the group coalesces.
[01:01:32.880]Once the group coalesces, when there's an issue,
[01:01:35.460]they're gonna, the kids will, the peer mentors
[01:01:37.020]will get to know you, they'll feel comfortable
[01:01:38.580]coming up to you and sharing what's going on.
[01:01:41.490]But in the beginning, yes, peer-only meetings is an option.
[01:01:44.610]I wouldn't do, and what you can do is you, if you have two,
[01:01:47.400]two groups, I mean, excuse me, two adults,
[01:01:50.250]then one of the adults can take the focus student
[01:01:52.260]and go do something that day, you know,
[01:01:53.760]something different during that period meeting
[01:01:55.770]kind of a thing while you meet, right,
[01:01:57.430]with just the peers only.
[01:01:59.400]But we do talk about that more in the training webinars.
[01:02:04.020]Thanks, Mary.

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I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

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