People who matter

What it is for

Most relationship sheets ask for a list of names. This one asks three questions about each person, which is what moves it past a register of who exists and into what each relationship actually does. A name on its own tells you very little. “My nan, because she never asks questions, she just feeds me” tells you a great deal.

The closing question is the one that earns the sheet its place. Strengthen, repair and understand better are three different asks, and a young person choosing between them is telling you where they think the difficulty sits. It invites repair without anybody having to name a problem first.

If you are mapping a whole family rather than the people around one young person, Pebble Genogram draws the same thinking as a family diagram, with households and relationships between everybody rather than six separate boxes.

Using it in a session

• Six boxes is a limit, not a target. Do not help them reach six. Three filled in properly are worth more than six half-written, and the ones they reach for first are the ones that matter.
• The second and third prompts are the work. Why this person matters, and how they support me. A young person who can answer the first but not the second is describing someone they love rather than someone who helps.
• A role is allowed instead of a name. “My mate’s mum” or “the man at the gym” are proper answers. Who the adults in a young person’s life actually are is often not who the file says.
• Slow down on question seven. Ask which of the three words they would pick and why. The answer is usually more specific than anything in the six boxes above it.
• It can be left with them. The sheet says it can be completed alone or with a trusted adult. Leaving it behind after a visit is a legitimate way to use it.