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Post by tpars1186 on Mar 12, 2019 15:52:04 GMT -5
Hello Fellow Facilitators,
I am putting together a session outline for Session 4 (Thinking about my family, Family planning, Sexuality, Intimate partner violence, and Preterm Labor) and a suggested activity is Safe Spaces. The gist of the activity is to create difficult scenarios and give participants time to discuss in small groups how to deal with their scenarios.
I am looking for ideas of places I could find suggested scenarios. This is my first Centering group so I don't have a lot of experience I can draw on to develop them. Any ideas for where I could find challenging scenarios about intimate partner violence, relationship issues, parenting, or access to social resources?
All suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Taylor
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Post by Tanya Munroe on Mar 18, 2019 7:56:00 GMT -5
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Post by Margie on Mar 24, 2019 9:00:45 GMT -5
Hi Taylor,
I have never use this activity, and have had to give it some thought........
Hope my free thinking helps a little.
One such scenario is easily found in the similar activity called "Dear Centering" on page 90 in the same guide.
Others, off the top of my head might be:
My husband (significant other) gets angry and sometimes punches the wall when he drinks, I have to hide as am scared that he will hurt me or the baby.
My husband seems to ignore me, and if I try to reach out he snaps and screams at me calling me names, sometimes he even slaps me. I don't know what to do,
if I wasn't pregnant, I would leave.
Some ideas - hopefully helpful!
Thanks for asking
.
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pamcnm
In-House Trainers
Posts: 33 
My job role is: Healthcare Provider
I am interested in Centering because: The centering model and facilitative leadership provide families with the support, education & assessments they need to become partners in their own care.
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Post by pamcnm on Mar 28, 2019 9:53:01 GMT -5
Hi Taylor,
I hope this is helpful. We have members count off in 4's and then break up into four smaller groups.
We introduce the topic of IPV in a way that we hope creates a "safe place" for the discussion we are trying to facilitate. I let the group know that this a challenging topic and we appreciate everyone's willingness to participate, that we are required by law to address this topic in prenatal care, and due to the prevalence of IPV in our communities everyone in the group's lives will be touched by this in some way. I usually mention something about how we want people struggling with IPV to feel safe enough to reach out to us and I hope others' will leave the group feeling better prepared to respond to a friend or family member in a way that is helpful.
I then give each group an envelope with a "Dear Centering" letters that I have written to reflect some of the ways IPV presents. I ask the group to read their letters and try to identify the 'red flag" that alerts them to the possibility the relationship is in trouble and what advice or suggestions they might offer this person. The scenarios in my four letters are a young pregnant woman who got pushed by her boyfriend when she confronted him about is substance abuse, a father who is hurt when his partner calls him names and makes fun in front of their toddler, a stay at home mom whose husband gives her an allowance and doesn't want to add her name to the family bank accounts, and a pregnant woman whose female partner has stopped being sexual and physically affectionate with her because she doesn't feel comfortable letting her partner's teenage daughter from a previous relationship be present for their baby's birth.
After about 10 minutes chatting in the smaller groups, we circle back up to share. We talk about the challenges. We usually talk a bit about the cycle of IPV. We then make sure everyone knows what resources we have within our healthcare system for helping: social workers and other mental health professionals, anger management and couples communication classes and help for substance abuse. We also have a card with county agencies and numbers that we provide.
In our setting, we do this during session 3 and we typically cover the topic of stress management during the second half of the group. I think the opening and closing you use on the day you cover this topic will also help to create the safe space you want/need to allow people to discuss these things. We have had members share about their history of abuse during these sessions and it's very powerful!
Let us know how it goes!
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Post by Andrea CCFT on Mar 29, 2019 10:46:53 GMT -5
I'm wondering if @lscheidenhelm or Margie or Mary Fitzmaurice have any suggestionThis was always a difficult session for us. We used a couple of short videos to show scenarios then discussed them and it was a little tense. We have had people from our local battered womens shelter come in and discuss domestic violence and safe places , but it was a little didactic and people did not open up or speak freely. I think our favorite is what we are doing now. We hand each person in the room including partners a wipe off board and have them write down 3 things that are important to them for a healthy relationship. We make sure partners do this without the other seeing what they are writing. Then we go around the room discussing what they wrote down and why. Our last question is, What happens when these things do not exist in a relationship? Without fail they bring up different domestic violence topics which we then discuss. At the end of the discussion we handout information on safe houses and phone numbers in case they or anyone else they know should need them. |
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Post by tpars1186 on Apr 2, 2019 11:53:51 GMT -5
Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses.
Similar to the splitting up into groups and giving "Dear Centering" letters, I wrote some scenarios down with the intention of passing them out. Unfortunately group was poorly attended that day with only 4 participants so I wasn't able to give it a try. I am going to include some of the shared scenarios in my tool kit for next time, though, and in June will have another opportunity to give it a try.
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