How do I Feel?

Time

60 mins

Target

14-19 years

Delivery

Face2Face

Deliver

Online

The focus of this session is to support young people to be a part of a group setting and clarify that their feelings on a statement are valid, there is an opportunity to practice expression of agreeing or disagreeing and contribute to a community in a safe and supportive environment.

AIMS

To raise participants' awareness of the relationship between social factors and individual thoughts and behaviours, including instinctual feelings (from the statements provided). This will help participants gain new skills and develop knowledge of important concepts such as identity, otherness, empathy, co-operation, and interdependence.

OUTCOMES

  • Understand the feelings of others, from different perspectives
  • Examine their own mental and emotional processes
  • Demonstrate good emotional intelligence through listening to others and decision making

RESOURCES

Here are some guidance to support the participants

ICE BREAKER

We recommend using - ‘Describe you’ 

Part 1: Agree or disagree

Introduction

The facilitator introduces the session and its aims and objectives to the whole group. The purpose of this session is to start to get participants thinking about a statement and to base their judgement(s) on how the statement makes them feel. To support their listening and communication skills, you are going to ask the whole group to split into breakout groups and each take a pen and a piece of flipchart paper and nominate someone to draw (all group members to contribute ideas and opinions).

Once in breakout groups the facilitator will read out the following instructions:

  • Ask groups to draw the 3 circle shapes (following the diagram below as a guide).
  • Half way and overlapping to the left of the first small circle, draw a smaller circle.
  • Connect the large circle and medium circle with a two lines.
  • Add 2 short lines going down from the bottom of the large circle
  • Add two short lines going down from the bottom of the medium size circle and a line going out the top right hand part of of the medium circle.
  • Add an upside down triangle from the top centre part of the small circle
  • Each group must decide on what animal it is and show their finished art work (just for a bit of fun!).

Note for the facilitator -

Participants should now have something that resembles a dog standing up on all fours.

Intoduction finisher

Who got the closest? Inform participants that we all interpret experiences and views differently and this is ok, the important thing is they can express their feelings.

Part 2 : decision, decisions - statements

The facilitator ask the participants

Come back to the middle of the room informs the participants that there is an invisible line in the middle of the room that they must cross and that their only answer and where they stand can either be ‘strongly agree’ (left), undecided (centre) or ‘strongly disagree' (right). When statements are read out provide 30 seconds for participants to decide on their views providing a total of 4 minutes for all statements. A timer may be used to facilitate this to ensure that each statement is thought through equally.

Highlight

The facilitator will highlight the active space within this part of the session, what is in the session space and what is not–there needs to be a centre or divider in the room this could be a mark on the wall or on the floor.

How do they feel?

Participants to decide on how they feel and think about the statements (explain that these are often subjective on the day) and must make up their own mind. When the participants are ready, read the following statements on activity sheet 1 one by one. After each statement ask the participants to return to the centre of the active space (undecided). Each participant can be provided with a copy of activity sheet 1 laminated and/or provide a projection of each statement to be accessed by the whole group.

The facilitator provides an example statement- ``walking is the best way to travel``.

Provide 30 seconds for participants to think about this statement and to move to ‘strongly agree’ (left), undecided (centre) or ‘strongly disagree' (right). Once participants have moved they are now a breakout group for this statement only. Participants are provided with 1 minute to think about why they choose that response and to provide up to 3 reasons for this decision based on how they feel about the statement.

One participant in the group (or in turns) to feedback to the whole group from their chosen position: 'undecided' (centre), 'strongly disagree' (left) or 'strongly agree' (right). After each breakout group has fed back, give the opportunity for individuals to reconsider their decision and move to one of the other groups. An additional opportunity for the 'undecided' group should be provided if there are still participants that remain here, with a discussion with the whole group to support them to make a choice or stay put.

Next Step``! The facilitator now resets the whole group back to the 'undecided' position and starts to work through activity sheet 1 statements using this format:

  • 30 seconds for individuals to decide with in the whole session group
  • 1 minute for 3 arguments to support their feeling(s).
  • Each group to feedback in turn - undecided (centre), strongly disagree (left), strongly agree (right).
  • Opportunity after each group for participants to change their decision.

Rethinking & finisher for the main part of the session

Part 3 - Reflection

Handout

Take a few minutes to discuss what has impacted on the participants from this session. Highlight the importance of answers not being right or wrong and changing your mind is an important outcome and listening to other people’s voice /opinion on how they feel about a topic/issue.

  • What was difficult for them when making choices?
  • Does the activity remind them of any real life situations– community, home, their education, etc.
  • What would they change about what they did for next time?

 Part 4: Has this session achieved the intended outcomes?

What can we do to help?

The facilitator refers to the learning outcome(s) for this session. Do participants all agree on the outcomes have been met? The facilitator can ‘test’ that learning outcomes have been met by a ‘pop’ quiz with prizes, etc.

Two questions to ask participants to reflect on:

  • On a scale of 1- 5, do you feel more confident in examining your own thoughts and emotions?
  • On a scale of 1-5, are you more confident in understanding feelings of others and from different perspectives

Evaluation

The evaluation that we recommend for this activity is the Target Evaluation 

Resources

Please feel free to download the activity resources. All documents are editable and can be adapted for your bespoke session.

Download Here