IPS Learning & Practice groups

Following is a draft format that some of us are trying out for leaderless International Peer Support groups that can be held on line or in the community.

Opening

Welcome to the IPS Learning and Practice Group.  We’re glad you’re here.

Brief Overview of IPS (ask someone to read)

Intentional peer support (IPS) is a way of thinking about and being in purposeful relationships. In IPS, we use our relationships to look at things from new angles. We develop a better awareness of personal and relational patterns. We support and challenge each other as we try new things. IPS is different from traditional service relationships because it doesn’t start with the assumption of “a problem.” Instead, we learn to listen for how each of us has made sense of our experiences. Together, we create new ways of seeing, thinking, and doing.  At the end of the day, it is really about building stronger, healthier communities.

 Check In 

How are people doing this week? If you’re new here, what drew you to this group?  What are you looking for?

Topic of the week 

(Topics are pulled from the key learning points in in Intentional Peer Support: An Alternative Approach)

Read a topic from the topic list (attached below, maybe just go in order through the list)

Ask questions about the topic that help the group to develop what it means.  The idea is to figure out how I want to practice the concept when I'm relating to others.  Also, to let others in the group know how I want them to practice this concept when they are relating to me. 

Sample questions:

·       “What does [the topic] mean to you…?

·       “How is it different from…”

·       “How does it make you feel when someone approaches you this way (or doesn’t)?

·       “How would you like us to practice this skill here with you if you are sharing?”

Practice Time

This is a time where we can practice what we’ve been discussing with each other.  Does anyone have an example from real life they want to share?  Then the rest of us can practice 2 ways.  

• First, by playing around and doing the opposite of what this skill means to us.  
• Then by doing a redo and really trying to practice the skill to the best of our ability. 

Sample script for practice session

Ask: "Is anyone willing to go first?  Ok go ahead and share your situation.  Be prepared though.  Because first everyone else, give the worst responses they can think of."

[Group practices examples of getting the concept totally wrong, often using examples of how others have messed up with us]

After 5 minutes, ask the sharer: What did you notice.  How did that feel?

Next the redo.  

Ask the shared:  Can you continue your sharing from here.  Except this time, everyone try to really practice the skill we are working on. 

After 5-10 minutes, ask the sharer: What did you notice.  Did that feel the same or different?  How so?

Give as many people turns as time allows.

Closing 

About 10 minutes before the end of the group, announce:  We’ve got about 10 minutes left.  

Then reflect together as a group, about how the group felt to people.  

Sample questions: 

Is there anything on anyone’s mind that feels unfinished or important that you want us to get to before the group ends?

How did the group go for you?  

Anything you want to should remember for next time – either that worked really well for you, or that you might want to change?

Summing up:

Next time we’ll talk about (next topic on list)

Thanks for being here!  Have a great week.

Topics

1.      Helping versus Learning & Growing

2.      Needs of Individuals versus Needs of Relationships

3.      Fear & Discomfort versus Hope & Possibility

4.      Connection vs. Disconnection

5.      Worldview: How we come to know what we know

6.      Mutuality / Mutually Responsible Relationships

7.      Moving Toward (what we want) vs. Moving Away From (what we don’t want)

8.      Sitting with Discomfort

9.      Holding Multiple Truth

10.  Embracing Uncertainty

11.  Listening from a Position of Not Knowing

12.  Listening for the Untold Story

13.  Providing Validation (Rather than Jumping Straight to Problem-Solving)

14.  Reflecting Feelings (That must make you feel really…)

15.  Asking Powerful Questions (What do you want? Do your beliefs support it? How do you want to feel? If you believed and felt that way, what might change?  How could you get there?)

16.  Deep presence - authenticity, commitment, honesty, willingness to be affected and changed

17.  Listening with an Ear for Role (good patient/ bad patient; good mother/ bad mother, etc.)

18.  Direct Honest Respectful Conversation (See-feel-need)

19.  Negotiating Reality

20.  Sitting comfortably with silence

21.  Conversations about diagnosis (human vs diagnostic language)

22.  Staying peer (what am I feeling right now,whose need am I trying to meet,what' s making me uncomfortable, am I owning my part, am I listening for the larger story?)