Circle of Friends
Circle of Friends
Circle of Friends
Category: Social/Emotional/Behavioral
Grade Level: All levels
1. What is the purpose of Circle of
Friends?
Circle of Friends (CoF) is a proactive
educational approach to establishing a
friendship group for isolated children in their
school environment. Its purpose is to
integrate and promote the social inclusion of
children with disabilities, specifically those
with social skills deficits, by fostering the
peer groups acceptance of the isolated child,
enhancing a childs social repertoire, and
hopefully promoting intrinsic change within
this child.
2. With whom can it be used?
Jack Pearpoint and Marsha Forest developed
CoF to be used with children and adolescents
of all ages who demonstrate deficits in social
skills resulting in marked social isolation
from peers (Newton et al., 1996); however, it
must be administered in a developmentally
appropriate and sensitive manner.
Groups of children that are assumed to
benefit directly from CoF include: withdrawn
and/or aggressive children, children with
learning disabilities, pervasive developmental
disorders, or behaviour problems resulting in
social rejection (e.g., negative evaluations by
peers). Note that CoF should be implemented
with rejected children and not neglected
children (e.g., children who are not
acknowledged positively or negatively by
their peers; such children would benefit more
from Shottons (1998) modified version of
CoF, to be described below). Importantly,
however, all children involved seem to
benefit directly and/or indirectly from CoFs
implementation (Newton et al., 1996).
3. What teaching procedures should be
used with Circle of Friends?
Immediately following the wholeclass discussion, the focus child, the peervolunteers, an external facilitator, and the
teacher have their first CoF group
meeting.
References