What is Circles of Support? It's a "community involvement" strategy to build relationships across class and race lines to increase the social capital and income of people in poverty. It involves participants and allies.
Participant: someone who is often isolated from the larger community and in need of support in order to achieve his/her potential. They have committed to working toward self-made goals.
Ally: is a person with any level of resources who has a genuine desire to help. He/she unites in a formal relationship with a participant in order to share his/her social capital.
Big Circle Meeting: a regular meeting of allies and participants whether the ally or the participant have been matched for a Small Circle or not.
Community Meeting: is once a month Big Circles meeting which is open to anyone in need of support including those who might be interested in getting involved in Small Circles.
Ally and Participant Support Meetings: they occur once a month but independent of one another to allow for participants to meet with participants and allies to meet with allies to discuss issues around their roles.
Small Circles Meetings: these are meetings of matched participants and allies. The circle sets their own meeting dates and commit to meet once a month.
Guiding Coalition: is the leadership group for Circles of Support typically comprised of half allies and half participants.
New & Good: is the opening exercise of every meeting where the participant and ally share one thing that is new and good in their life. It is a cognitive restructuring tool helping to focus on what is going well. It promotes individual empowerment and community development.
Appreciations: is the closing exercise. Everyone is asked to verbalize appreciation for one other person. It helps everyone to think beyond their own situation and to leave feeling valued and needed.
This provides you with a brief framework of the Circles of Support. We are planning to add this to the HopeBuilders group in our northern region.
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