Circles of Support Template

The circle is broken down in to 4 different circles. 

1. Intimacy – the people whom you have a really close relationship with. 
2. Friendship – the people who are your friends, the people you enjoy spending time with and people you share interests and hobbies. 
3. Participation – these people would be people you know from places you visit regularly, or people in the community (groups/cafés/clubs/gyms)
4. Exchange- these are the people who are paid to be in your life. E.g. milk man, social worker, the bus driver. 

In the example above the focus person is “Geoff”. Through completing the circles together, you realise that Geoff does have relationships in different aspects of his life that are not immediately recognised. 

For example, Geoff attends the local gym and the person at the reception is Fred. Fred and Geoff often discuss their work out together and through this relationship have found mutual interest. 

This then evolves into a deeper friendship where Geoff and Fred go for tea after their gym session at the local pub and they meet Sue. This is creating the opportunity of more relationships for Geoff to explore. 

This is a good template to complete for identifying the key people in your life and whom you would like to join your circle of support. It also helps to identify the areas where there is potential to develop relationships further i.e. moving from the circle of participation to the circle of friendship.

It is possible to develop a new circle of support and to then see how the relationships have changed over time.

This is a template which has been developed by Imagineer as a result of our learning from the work we do alongside people, families, organisations and communities. You are welcome to adopt this template, but please credit Imagineer if you do so.