The Circle Education is celebrating its 30th anniversary in August. Leading up to this milestone, we talk with people who played a significant role in our history. Robert Birch was the first male facilitator for SWOVA (now The Circle Education) and one of the developers of the Respectful Relationships Program (R&R), which laid the foundation for our current programs.
SWOVA started to focus on prevention and education in 1996. Birch joined the organization in 1999. Bringing his fifteen years of arts-informed social education, he worked alongside executive director Lynda Laushway, and co-facilitators, Kim Davidson and Ahava Shira (pictured with Robert Birch and Christina Antonick) to develop the first iteration of the Respectful Relationships Program for middle and high school students.
R&R was an in-school program that addressed gender-based violence. “Our approach was to do more than attempt to change an individual’s way of thinking. We knew we needed a structural approach if we were to address socially embedded, harmful norms toward encouraging youth, parents and educators to more actively participate in gender equality,” says Birch, who now works as a consultant and a writer on Salt Spring Island. “We wanted the program to have a more cultural influence.”
With the Respectful Relations Program, an award-winning model that eventually extended to other rural and remote communities in B.C. and other provinces, youth from grade 7 through grade 10 received 48 sessions of social-emotional programming in four years. “The Respectful Relationships Program was about understanding who we are within the context of social bias and how biases influence our behaviour towards others,” Birch continues.
“We began by looking at the nature of bullying, and by the end of those 48 sessions of sitting in a circle with two facilitators, students were able to identify patterns of healthy and unhealthy relationships, —understand how difficult, but necessary it is to leave one, and how to carefully support somebody who might be in one. One of the big indicators of the success of this program was that when young people felt safe in social learning models, the research revealed their scholastic outcomes also improved.”
Annually, students also spent two sessions in separate groups. “It created safety for girls and boys to speak their minds and hearts more freely. It wasn’t always easy, especially for the boys,” Birch remembers. “One question that almost always sparked meaningful conversations in the boys’ group was: ‘Who wants to be a father one day?’ Many said yes. They then shared what kind of father they wanted to be, who their role models were, and identified approaches to parenting they would rather not emulate. Often, this was the first time they had ever talked about this topic —exploring what it means to parent. It made them realize that boys and men can have values and roles that transcend gender; that they can choose how they show up in the world, what kind of family they want and what kind of relationships they will build.”
Birch was also involved with SWOVA’s Youth Team. The Youth Team consisted of bright, caring and socially engaged youth who came together once a week to participate in a deeper learning of the curriculum. “Eventually, they would join us in the younger classrooms as assistant facilitators. It was a critical part of the program’s success to have older kids guiding their younger peers, as they were able to contextualize the learning through their own lived experiences. As an aside, it was also great for their resumés.”
Looking back, one of the highlights for Birch was the time when he was one of the provincial trainers for the Respectful Relationships Program in British Columbia. “Just seeing the light go on for many educators, the relief that they had finally found a program which the school system could benefit from. They were excited to bring R&R into their schools. Many teachers felt powerless around bullying. There wasn’t a strong educational framework at the time; while some schools had a no-tolerance policy on violence, most schools didn’t even have that as a baseline. R&R went right down to the roots of what education is and what it stands for: classroom cultures where every student is free to learn. It’s similar to being hungry, if you don’t feel seen and respected, it’s hard to focus.”
While programs today may look different, the foundational work of Robert Birch and other early forerunners established core values, including safety, social-emotional competence, critical thinking, respect, equality, awareness of bias, and skills for healthy relationships, which remain strong in The Circle Education’s ongoing mission.
After his time with SWOVA, Birch built an international career as a facilitator and writer on sexuality and intimacy. His work for SWOVA in the schools was often challenging, but he remains convinced these social-emotional programs are vital. “Kids need a place to practice their innate intelligence, kindness, and care. These types of programs could make the difference between a life of connection or one of isolation, violence or even death. That sounds dramatic, but considering the times we are living in, it remains true.”
