Relationship Mapping

What:

Relationship Mapping is a process which builds a quick visual of the students who are well supported with positive relationships and those who might need more support. Knowing this, participants (adults and students)can then strategize about how to best reach out to students who may not yet have those positive relationships in the class/building/district.

How to do it:

1. Build a list of all students in the identified group (club, classroom, building, district, etc.).

2. Ask all students in the identified group to identify how many positive and strong connections they have. You could ask specifically about relationships with adults in the school setting, with peers, and/or within the broader community. A positive and strong connection should be defined (e.g. This is a relationship with someone you feel safe and comfortable talking to when you are struggling and you feel confident they can respond to help.) Depending on the setting and confidentiality of the responses you could ask students to identify by name which school staff they feel they have a strong and positive relationship.

3. Review the completed map to reflect on surprises and reflections the map raises.

4. Identify students with no positive relationships or few positive relationships and identify which adult(s) will reach out to those students.

5. Follow up with staff after 4 weeks and again at 2 months after this activity to check in on progress. Set up additional follow ups as needed.

Examples:

• Help understand level of connectedness students may have within the school and community recognizing that a relationship with one caring and supportive adult is a protective factor for our students.

• Design approach for broader opportunities for relationship building strategies once you have a sense of current rate of connectedness.

• Use as a datapoint to help guide intervention teams on which students to prioritize based on positive relationships and gaps in need.

Things to Consider:

• This tool can be used by adults to identify which students they feel have a positive and caring relationship - however, this approach does not allow for active student voice engagement.

• If there are several students with few positive relationships, staff may consider how to build a culture that fosters safe and caring relationships between adults and students - a broader culture approach.

• When reviewing as adults, participants can be asked to identify students they are concerned with having gaps in their needs being addressed (e.g. attendance challenges, academic challenges, gaps in basic needs or other personal challenges).

• While this tool could provide a very valuable lense into relationships and perceptions of students and adults, its facilitation, processing and response need to be followed with the utmost care. When asking students to share this information, be aware this may be emotionally activating for students who identify few or no positive relationships. Consider what kind of immediate support and responses might be available for students. When interpreting and planning responses to this data, be explicit in the need for confidentiality and aware of how bias might show up in potentially harmful ways.

Take It to the Next Level

Leveling Up Towards the Leadership End of the Spectrum of Student Voice-Oriented Activity

• Engage students in identifying the topic, question, and/or prompt.

• Consider how students can use this tool to engage adults and their perceptions of relationship building and how it compares.

• Consider how students can provide leadership from facilitating the activity, making meaning of the data collected, and advising how the data is used.