Circle of Courage

Hello Everyone,

I hope you had a good Easter weekend. It is cold here again today....40's. Brrrrrr. But the flowers are out and the trees are blooming, so it is really pretty.

Let's talk about Circle of Courage. This is a way of working with youth that was developed by 3 Native Americans. Go to the website to read more.

Notice the Circle of Courage at the top of this blog. Now even though it is used with youth, I think it can be used by adults too.

In fact, i want to use it with us first.

As you can see there are 4 areas:

Independence
Belonging
Mastery
Generosity

This philosophy states that youth (and I believe adults, too) have needs for each of these areas. That we have a need for each one of these. And we either meet our need positively, negatively or not at all.

The cool thing about this philosophy is that by looking at needs, there is no shame or criticism or judgment. We are all just meeting our needs the only way we know how.

For example, if a youth is a member of a gang, which need is he getting met? And is this a positive way to meet the need for belonging?

We love this model at Oasis. We will look at it more this week.

Think about it.

LA