Circle of friends

[niminypiminy]

I used to post here quite a lot, and then took some time out. This is the best place to ask for advice though and so I've come back!

DS1 is 8 in yr 3 and has AS. He has a statement with 32.5 hrs support. Things are not going very well at school (long story, won't go into details) and his annual review is coming up.

I'm trying to approach this positively and want to go to the AR with an agenda both of the problems DS1 is having and with some strategies to use. One of the problems is that he has 2 children who are trying to befriend and look after him (bless them ) but they are finding it very hard going (not surprised about that at all).

I'm thinking of asking school to set up a Circle of Friends intervention to widen the group of children shouldering the burden of befriending DS1. Has anybody any experience of this intervention. Information about Circle of Friends is here.

I do know about it but have not used it. I know a couple of people who have used it who have hf children than my DS. I can email to ask how they got on if it would help.

Davros that would be fantastic, thankyou. DS1 has two children who have befriended him, but he is browbeating them and the parents have talked to me about how distressed they are. I am thinking of suggesting Circle of Friends as a way of getting a wider group of children to take on that role, and to get the situation monitored. It would be so helpful to me to have some feedback before I go charging into school.

Personally, I think it depends on the nature of your child.
DS2 year 2, has various anxiety issues etc, afaik NT, but school has referred to CAHMS for input. He has issues in making friends, although not unpopular, just not everyone's first choice to play with.
He is quite a single minded character, likes what he likes, doesn't see the point of being friends with someone that doesn't like the same things/games as him.
We decided that circle of friends was not suitable as he would like to be able to pick his own friends, and artificially asking people that he would not normally consider would backfire.
As I said, it depends on the child.

Circle of Friends is a really good idea, but absolutely everything depends on the group that's chosen to support the child. Many of us prefer to have one or two closer friends to rely on, and others who are outside of that who are general supporters. A whole group all at once can be very overwhelming and scary, especially sat in a circle with all of that eye contact and body language to decode all at once.

If it's done in a way that the group also learns to 'speak' our language, rather than expect its job is to teach us to behave like we're not autistic in any way, good.

A whole school anti-bullying approach is useful too.

Circle of friends was suggested for my ds, but in the end they took a slightly different approach.

What they did was get him to agree a list of children he most likes to work with in class - the initial list was just two children. They then encouraged and supervised groupwork with those children and cut a deal to gradually introduce others to the groups. So, still in very small groups and at first always including at least one off his preferred list. Over this school year he has expanded the list quite a bit after actually getting to work with children he wouldn't normally have considered.

This has really helped his ability to work as part of a team (although admittedly he still has a long way to go) and has also had a knock-on effect to the playground/social situations, because some of the other children, who might not have considered ds as friend material beforehand, then had common ground with him and also found that, whilst obviously quirky and different, he can be fun to be around and also a fiercely loyal friend.

He still prefers to spend his playtimes with his best friend and the other other boy he had on his initial list, but as they are both in an activity one lunchtime a week, he has started to see the value of considering spending time with some of the other children.

He still struggles to get involved in the other children's games on these lunchtimes, but is more likely to have one of the other children approach him if they see him on his own than they would have done before.

So, whilst there was no formal 'circle' and no time spent sitting talking and working on social skills etc, the whole process has been hugely positive and beneficial for ds. This also means that I am slightly less concerned about him struggling if his best friend ends up at a different secondary school to him, as he will at least have some children who he has some sort of good relationship with, even if they are not exactly what you could call proper friends, iyswim.

Agree it depends on the child.

DS wouldnt cope with it as although he wants to belong he copes with only 1 person at a time as he is so rigid in his thinking and play. He can at the moment just about cope with accepting a different view with encouraging reminders or prompts but the anxiety is there because he worries about the outcome of change. When amongst a group of peers the stress is too much.

It's interesting that it doesn't seem to be widely used. I agree it might depend on the child. One of its advantages seems to me that it spreads the burden of being friends with the child with ASD among several, rather than just one or two. (Don't get me wrong, I would throw myself under a train to save DS1, but it's really, really hard to be his friend. He seeks social contacts but then is horrible to them.)
I wonder if there's anything else out there that's good. This is really for children who are HF, in mainstream, able to make social contact, but do it really badly -- eg can't tell when they are being rude/hurtful, need to control games, won't let target child play with anyone else etc etc

my ds's school said they were going to do a circle of friends but then didn't follow it through (after sending ds out of class and then telling the rest of the class that they were going to do one for ds, they then did nothing at all...). If the teacher is disorganised it just won't work. I've seen nurture groups work very well though and personally would push for that.

School has a nurture group, and DS1 has been going for nearly 4 years now.

I agree nurture groups are fantastic though. The one at school does absolutely awesome work.

perhaps a mentor could help the children who are befriending him also? does he have a key member of staff who helps him out?

Mentor for the other children is a really good idea. Thank you! That's something to take to the school. He is supposed to have staff support during unstructured times ha, ha as he has f/t statement. But I've never seen any evidence of it.