Friends, peers and influence

What it is for

The first two boxes look like the same question and are not. People who are important to me, then people I feel good around. For a lot of young people those lists do not match, and the gap between them is the conversation the sheet exists to start. It is a far easier thing to notice on a page than to answer out loud.

The tick boxes treat influence as neutral. Encouragement sits in the same list as pressure, being asked to do things and feeling left out, so ticking one is not an admission. “Not sure” is there as a real option rather than a polite one, and online influence sits with the rest instead of being set apart as a special category.

Using it in a session

• Boxes one and two are not the same question. Ask about anyone who appears in one and not the other. That is usually the most useful minute on the sheet.
• Encouragement is on the tick list on purpose. Starting there makes the rest of the list possible to tick. Influence is not only a risk word.
• “Not sure” is an answer. Leave it there. Pushing past it tends to produce the answer the young person thinks you want.
• What helps comes before who to talk to. Box five asks what already works for them. Ask about something they have actually done, not something they could do.
• Let box three stay vague if it needs to. It asks about people or situations. A young person who writes a place rather than a person has still answered it.