| Activity Identification | Dimension | Number of Participants | Duration (minutes) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Strengths Spotting Interview | SELF KNOWLEDGE | 8 - 12 | 30 |
The aim of the Activity
To help participants further explore their personal strengths and other resources and competencies by identifying strengths in themselves and in other, based on their real-life experiences and situations.
Gaining insight into and knowledge about one’s strengths and resources enhances the possibility of reinforcing these. Knowledge and awareness of ones strengths are both motivating and useful when trying to create lasting improvements in life.
Preparation
Paper and pen for feedback – for each participant to register the information received.
Print handout 7 Strengths Spotting interview. One for each participant or group.
Re-use the Support Information ‘My Strengths’ to promote an easy identification of the strengths shown during the interview.
Result from the handout My Character Strengths (solitaire), handout My Character Strengths (VIA online survey) and/or The Character Strength Cards as inspiration.
Instructions
Creating a frame for shared exploration of Character Strengths can be done in 2 different ways:
In plenum
Introduce the exercise by going through an example in the plenum. Ask one participant who will be willing to reply to the question in plenum by either this example: “Tell me about the best day that you can remember having, where you took responsibility”, or you can come up with your own questions. Along the story, ask the participant open-ended questions and make sure that she/he talks about the strengths and resources. Make sure they all have paper for feedback and start the activity.
All participant will listen to the dialogue and spots strengths, and resources revealed in the dialogue. Either make written notes of strengths shown in the dialogue or uses a deck of strengths cards in substitution of writing.
Have the participants tell what strengths and resources they heard revealed in the dialogue.
Other positive feedback is also welcome.
In Groups
You can start with the plenum exercise and then follow up by dividing the participants into groups of 3 persons or go straight to this activity by explaining the exercise.
Explain the role of being an active listener in this exercise (listen carefully and take notes for sharing). Choose the participant that will be interviewed as well as the interviewer, who will make use of the guiding questions from the interview handout, while a third person writes down the various strengths or skills that he or she notices during the interview. The person who listens should have a list of strengths at the end of the interview.
After the interview, the listening participants share their observations on which strengths and resources they noticed in the stories from the interviewed participant.
Observations / Suggestions
It is possible to use this activity combined with ‘My strengths – Solitaire’ and ‘Strengths by storytelling', and ‘VIA- online assessment’.
This exercise requires that the participants can communicate fluently together and have some level of interviewing skills.
Low-cost option: Instructions and questions can be written on a board for all to see.