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Question: We are looking to start a youth peer group for 14-24 year olds living with a mental illness. I would like to have a contract for the youth to sign when they first join stating they will be respectful and no aggression. Is there anything I could use as a guideline. While I want this to be their group I feel there needs to be some guidelines and responsibilities for the participants.
Answer:

Hello Cathy,

Thank you for coming to us with this. Having some guidelines set to follow can definitely help them form a better sense of responsibility. I found it helpful to include them in the process of forming these guidelines and responsibilities. We did that several times with youth from different areas and backgrounds, between the age of 15 -25. The facilitator would introduce the program and the objective, and then s/he would explain the importance of having a set of rules and guidelines to keep the order, respect each other, and ask them the best way to make the sessions as beneficial/fun as possible (their likes, disklikes, expectations...).  The facilitator can use a flipchart to write down all their suggestions and have them all sign it, then hang it in the meeting room as a reminder of their guidelines. We saw this to give the youth ownership and personal responsibility for their actions and meeting. This can be easily adapted to the needs of the project/workshop/meeting...

Please find more information in the hyperlinks below on:

The first tittle can help with facilitation skills, while the second is dirrectly linked to youth mentoring and tools concerning that subject. The third has been found useful in certain contexts, and I thought you might want to explore it.

Good luck with the meetings, let us know how it goes.

 

Question Date: Wed, 02/10/2016