Circle of Friends

Circle of Friends is a social action program that helps students who are often marginalized at the high school level. Through organized, student lead collaboration we plan exciting, engaging, and safe social activities to help cultivated and foster friendship among students in our school who struggle socially. We use positive role models who are natural peer helpers in our school to assist in helping students create their own friendship circle. This program runs both in and out of school.

Update (June 27, 2011)

Circle of Friends is a program that our school is very proud of. We begin the year in October, once we have our Circle of Friends members and our helpers picked the fun begins! This year we kicked off with a pizza party at our Youth Drop in Center. We are VERY fortunate to have the Drop In in our community. It is a great place for kids to hang out in a safe environment. Fortunately for us the Drop In is available for us to rent on Mondays. We have taken full advantage of this off site location! This facility truly has something for everyone. Students play great board games like Apples to Apples, shoot a game of pool, or go head to head in one of their favourite video games played on the many flat screen TVs. They are involved with one another for the full 3 hours we are there. Half way through the evening we break to have dinner together. We all sit together around large banquet tables and eat pizza and enjoy refreshments. Then it is back to the fun! You only have to be in the room for mere seconds to see the delight on the faces of the participants. For many this is the only time they get to hang out with peers. Slowly but surely these peers become their friends! As they leave the Youth Drop In for pick up kids are always asking when the next event will take place! It was a great night!

Update (June 27, 2011)

We had a great day at Thundar Rapids Amusement park. Students got the opportunity to go go carting with their friends, play a round of miniature golf, eat together then hit the batting cages or bumper boats. It was a beautiful sunny day and for some of the students it was their first time participating in these activities.

Update (January 23, 2012)

To kick off Circle of Friends for the 2011-2012 school year, we had an evening at our local Youth Drop-in Centre. We met at the drop-in after school on Monday October 24th and had an evening of fun, food and games! Students had been asking about the first Circle of Friends event since the first day of school. We have many new faces involved with Circle of Friends this year but within a few minutes at the drop-in centre everyone was involved in an activity and making new friends. Dinner consisted of pizza, pop and snacks. Students stopped their activities to sit around the tables and eat and chat. Once finished they were back at it, playing video games, board games, pool, air hockey and card games. Students are so excited to participate in Circle of Friends, they are coming up with different ideas for activities this year and would like to participate in Circle of Friends activities weekly!

Update (January 23, 2012)

On November 9, 2011 we went to Paintball Paradise. Students were eager to get their game on! They were buzzing with excitement! When we arrived at Paintball Paradise students were instructed to put on a pair of coveralls and were then given instructions on how to use the paintball guns. Once we had filled their paintball guns with paint they were off to battle it out on the paintball field. We barbequed hot dogs and hamburgers while they were playing and stopped for supper halfway through so they could fuel up on food and paint! What a great night we had! It was so much fun and so many smiles and laughs were shared!