How is the program delivered?
Caring-Go-Round works in 30-minute, weekly sessions with small groups (up to 15 children in each group), over a six-week period.
Each session involves a different theme, including:
- identifying and dealing with feelings
- working together as a team
- learning how to be a good support to friends.
Each session will start with a mindfulness and relaxation exercise, movement session, and a final activity where each of the children recognises a positive quality in the child sitting next to them.
This part of the activity can be repeated each week so that it unifies each of the sessions together. The whole session will work like a bell curve – starting slow, building up to some movement and then slowing down again.
Therapeutic foundations
Mindfulness: A therapeutic technique supporting children to create a calm mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting feelings, thoughts and bodily sensations. This tool is highly effective in reducing anxiety within children and young people.
Yoga: Movement, particularly in trauma-informed yoga practice, can strengthen the mind and body connection, helping to reduce overstimulation and reactivity and encourage relaxation. Yoga can help give children the power to reclaim control of their bodies and experiences.
Quality Recognition: Based on a program developed by the Butterfly Foundation, this activity encourages peer acknowledgement and celebration of key qualities identified in others. This assists children to recognise qualities and complement behaviours, demonstrated by their peers, that positively impact them.
Discussions on how to enhance these strengths are facilitated by the program leader in group discussion. Each participant receives a ribbon at the end of each session, corresponding to the quality acknowledged by the group about them.
Child safety
Keeping children and young people safe is a priority at Relationships Australia Victoria. View our statement of commitment and Code of Conduct to learn more.
