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Pastoral Care
Get to know our Chaplain!
Agnes Lagiono
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UR Strong Program
Creating a culture of kindness at your school
Research shows that relationships are the heart of wellbeing & learning. When we get friendships right in schools, children flourish!
URSTRONG provides teachers with a friendship skills curriculum, Friendology 101, that help kids establish + maintain healthy relationships, manage conflict with kindness, and increase their overall resilience.
Some friendships bring out the best in us while, unfortunately, some bring out the worst. It’s so important to teach children that friendships are a choice and help them learn the difference between healthy & unhealthy friendships.
The Friend-o-meter was developed because research shows that kids do not always assess or evaluate their friendships – meaning, they accept both the good and bad into their world. We want kids thinking about whether or not friendships are healthy for them. This is critical for students to start doing this now, instead of when they’re 16 and in a romantic relationship. We want kids asking themselves now, “Is this relationship good for me? Does this person treat me with the respect I deserve?” so that this self-compassion will be an instinct when considering future relationships.
The 4 Friendship Facts were developed because we noticed that children weren’t sure what was “normal” or common in their friendships. These 4 Friendship Facts are the foundation of a healthy, respectful friendship and apply to relationships throughout life.
As Friendship Fact #1 teaches us, no friendship (or relationship) is perfect. It’s normal for us to encounter conflict with our friends. The Friend-o-cycle helps us see that Friendship Fires® are a normal part of a friendship and, when they’re put out in a respectful way, can actually make a friendship closer & stronger.
The Friend-o-cycle was developed to help kids recognize the very normal cycle that friendships go through. When trust & respect is central, friendships can survive conflict and get back into the healthy zone of the Friend-o-meter. The Talk-it-Out phase is where skills come in (and kids need to practice!) to put a Friendship Fire all the way out and move on to Forgive & Forget.
For more information, visit https://urstrong.com/