Guiders Staff Room Part 4

[Groovee]

Moving on from Part 3

[drspouse]

I've got another one for the bingo, complaining about how unreasonable leaders are for expecting badges to be sewn on.

[SalrycLuxx]

We’ve got one girl whose mum never sews anything on at all. Fortunately the girl doesn’t seem to mind.

[MillicentMargaretAmanda]

New thread! Did the edible architecture and mime activities from the Innovate Level 2 skills builder tonight. The girls loved it. Next term I need to be brave enough to run two seperate skills builders at the same time...

[Heratnumber7]

Brownie Leaders - your advice please...,

I'm a Div Com and ex Brownie Leader. Have received a complaint from a parent about her 7 yo who has just joined a unit, but who is having problems being accepted by the other girls. They don't include her in stuff.
I don't know (yet) whether this is thoughtless or deliberate, and appreciate how difficult fit a 7yo starting in a unit on her own.

I'm looking for tips I can pass on to the Leader to help her to make sure the girl feels included and part of a unit. It's been a while since I was directly involved.

Thank you

[Groovee]

@Heratnumber7 I always allocate a brownie buddy to new girls and get the young leaders to keep an eye and see how they are doing. Has the parent spoken to the leader? We do a lot of work in their sixes so smaller groups can really help.

[Heratnumber7]

Thx. I thought about a "buddy".
I don't think the parent has spoken to the Leader yet. She's come straight to me.

[Groovee]

As a DC, I always advise the parent to speak to the leader as really that should be your first port of call when you as a parent have a concern.

[MarieVanGoethem]

How new is new, too? Is this a parent worried her daughter’s isolated after half a term at Brownies; or cross she’s done one meeting & not come out with a new BFF? (Or something between the two, clearly...)

Keeping the Brownie Buddy system from the outgoing programme is valuable (I think mine would be horrified if it stopped, it’s a huge deal to be chosen to be someone’s Buddy) & we do lots of work in Sixes, with Sixers & Seconders expected to make sure everyone in their Six is included (& to fetch a Leader if there’s a problem, we work with them on identifying their roles vs our roles & being clear that if I’m doubt they should seek help from either a BH/YL or an adult). Doing some activities of the Secret Friend type/all working with someone you don’t usually/maybe even playing The Exclusion Game is there’s any risk of actual bullying-type issues in the Unit.

It might be the Unit Leader has heaps of excellent strategies for dealing with this already but if she’s not been made aware there’s an issue... well, that might be the bit that’s the issue IYSWIM?

Good luck...

[FromDespairToHere]

Oh wow how did I not know this thread existed? Brownie leader here, throwing ourselves headlong into the new programme. I intend to lurk here for now if that's ok!

[Becles]

@Heratnumber7 welcome! Since it's not about the actions of the leader and mum hasn't spoken with the volunteers yet I'd offer her a choice of you redirecting her to the leaders or her going to them in the first instance.

If she's coming to you with stuff like this she's likely to continue and you risk her undermining the ability of the leaders to make her and the situation. Not only that if they try think you are stepping in unnecessarily, you risk losing their trust and engagement.

Long story short- mum needs to let the leaders deal with it and can come back to you after the end of term if unhappy. Don't offer suggestions until asked unless the team is inexperienced or have generally lost their way.

[Heratnumber7]

Well I don't actually know yet that it's not due to the actions of the Leader. I need to find out more about her from the D.C.

I'm assuming her innocence, but looking for suggestions for either me or DC to give her when one of us discusses with her.

She may be totally oblivious to the issue, or may be well aware, but not dealing with it properly.

Of course, the situation may be of the girl's own making!

[Heratnumber7]

Thank you everyone for your thoughts and suggestions.

[MillicentMargaretAmanda]

Dear GO,
I was a great advocate for you, defending you to many, but last night you ate 15 of my completed Skills Builder badges, you git, so you and I are going to have to reassess our relationship...
Yours in anger and frustration
MMM

[FullFatCoke]

I added a girl back to the unit this week, after taking her off in November when she said she was quitting.
She had completed a Skillsbuilder and some UMA time in the Autumn term, however now she's back to zero! GRRRR.

[scissy]

Can I join? I'm another Brownie Leader.
@Heratnumber7 I guess it's a bonus the parent is contacting someone before pulling their DD out. We lost a girl for this reason, the first we knew of it was after she had left. The thing is, we use a buddy system, and can put extra measures in place if we know there's a problem (because we have managed to solve it for others!)

I'd be interested to know what the "exclusion game" is though, as I've not come across that one.

Otherwise we started the new programme this term, first aid SB is going down well and the repetition/recap is meaning they remember it which is a plus!

[MarieVanGoethem]

Exclusion Game
Once upon a time when 4 was Peer-Led (& an insane amount of work...) there was a bullying topic (to help Unit Leaders tackle the topic, not a how-to guide, obviously) & the version of the Exclusion Game I know comes from there, but doubtless exists in other forms elsewhere. Idea is that you get children to consider behaviours involved in bullying situations & how it makes everyone involved feel. My huge 4[CaST] folder is buried somewhere (not needed it since I turned Officially Old) so doing this from memory...

• split children into three groups - they’ll be in the roles of targets, bullies & bystanders & will rotate through the roles so they play each part
• bullies can tell their targets to do anything they want them to as long as it is safe; if you have enough time (& it won’t create future issues) your Unit can agree a list of names the bully group can call the targets in place of ACTUAL mean words (Brownies are often good at this: “ugh, get OVER here you flurbleDOINKump” can sound VERY rude...) & targets have to obey (having some examples - eg do 10 starjumps, stand in the corner, tell me how awesome I am, do your best impression of a cat [we’d often provide food so bully group could demand snacks])
• target group have to do what they’re told by bullies
• bystanders have to watch - if they reach a point where they feel uncomfortable doing so, they can turn away: they should try to remember what’s happening when they do so
• you rotate your bullies to bystanders, bystanders to targets, and targets to bullies; then round again - each turn should be about 1-2 minutes: just long enough for girls to experience the role

Then you get the girls together to reflect on what it felt like in each role & why they think people might behave in those ways when they see people being bullied. It can work very well but you obviously have to keep on top of things to ensure you’ve not got any “clever” ideas coming from your “bully” group (er, no, licking your shoes isn’t safe, thank you) & watch for anyone actually getting upset etc.

(Bullying was always a tricky topic to run - always had to go in with assumption there would be children in the Unit who’d experienced bullying, but Leaders who were having issues in Unit & didn’t tell you beforehand [despite the helpful space on booking form where they could do just that...]. Had a few times where girls disclosed serious bullying issues in session feedback though, which was good, as meant Leaders were able to get them appropriate help. Sorry, epic digression...)

Am aware that in this case it’s not bullying being discussed - though deliberate exclusion is a form of bullying, so I suppose it MIGHT be, after all, depending on what turns out to be going in! - but being a bystander feeds into questions about what stops girls from being the one to go & talk to/play with a new Brownie; & an isolated Brownie will often share feelings & experiences with a bullied one.

[Heratnumber7]

Again, thank you for your suggestions.

[scissy]

Thank you!
That activity looks really good.

[Lyricallie]

Hello soon to be fully qualified Guide Leader checking in (need to finish the blooming finance section).

Although I did do my years through rainbows brownies guides etc.

Just posting so I’ll see any comments coming up :)

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Hi. Brownie leader in training here. I've done guides and rainbows before though, so just doing the changing section part of the training.

We've thrown ourselves completely into the new programme and have done a load of UMAs and 2 skills builders since September. The girls are pretty keen on what we've been doing. The most popular UMAs we've done were the trash fashion (they had a wonderful time and designed some amazing outfits) and brownie marketplace (we split it over 2 weeks so 1 week planning their stall and the second week running it).

We've got a lovely group of girls now. Last year we had some more challenging behaviour but those girls left in the summer and the ones who replaced them are delightful.

[Becles]

@MarieVanGoethem thanks fornthe exclusion game. Have printed it for my young leader and LiT to read through.

[Becles]

Welcome @Lyricallie and @MsAwesomeDragon

Pull up a toad stool

[MarieVanGoethem]

Glad Exclusion Game seems to be helpful-useful: I’d not thought about it for years...

My Brownies love trash fashion - it’s something we did before new Programme so they can’t quite believe their luck it’s now a UMA (obviously they understand can only count it towards TA once but “Snowy Owl, when we get new Brownies we should do it again, for them... & some people missed that week...” )

[MsAwesomeDragon]

Yes Marie ours said that too. There are actually a few they have suggested we should do again. Catch a story (or similar, can't remember the name exactly) was popular, although the story actually digressed into animals pooing for some reason. So we have done that one a few times now, and every time the story ends up quite disgusting .

The one about making windmills from straws didn't work so well. None of the windmills would turn, even with the hairdryer, even after making the holes bigger. I don't think our pins were long enough. Luckily we knew how to make windmills from paper, so we did that and they worked much better and we talked about why we'd had problems.

We enjoyed the communicate skills builder, all the Brownies now know the promise in sign language, which they think is amazing.

We've got a promise ceremony after half term, with 6 Brownies and 2 leaders all making their promise together. And 6 of the older Brownies are bringing something from the baking badge to share with the promise guests. I'm really looking forward to it.

[MarieVanGoethem]

Ours liked Catch A Story too MsAwesomeDragon - mercifully they didn’t get scatological with it. Quite a lot of explosions though

Unfantastic Plastic just doesn’t work at all (though Brownies tried really hard with it because they genuinely care about single-use plastics). Thankfully we did Bottle Mansions immediately afterwards & it was much more successful-enjoyable.

We’re meeting on Thinking Day itself which I’m possibly more excited about than is seemly. My littlest Pixie’s going to make her Promise. Lots of excitement about doing so. She’s her big sister helping her practice for it. The cuteness of it is near fatal. My Brownies should come with a health warning...