Responsibility Pie Chart
Introduction
The Responsibility Pie Chart (RPC) is a tool taken from the Bounce Back programme to encourage young people (particularly children) to understand that all negative situations can be said to occur as a result of the combination of three factors:
· Their own actions: How much did their own behaviour contribute to the situation (me)?
· The action of others: How much did the behaviour of others contribute to the situation (others)?
· Random unpredictable factors: How much did bad luck or circumstances (e.g. weather, timing, coincidences, lack of knowledge, illness) contribute to the situation (bad luck)?
How the RPC works
Following an incident a young person thinks through what happened and then allocates responsibility in terms of percentages. We have created a moveable RPC but you don’t need to be limited to this method. When discussing the issue with older children it might be more appropriate to use a pie chart in an Excel spreadsheet. With younger children you could use Lego bricks to attribute the percentages or ask them to draw a circle to represent the RPC. No matter what method used, young people are required to allocate a percentage of responsibility to ‘me’, ‘others’ and ‘bad luck’ and this forms the basis of discussion and resolution of the incident.
Specific advice on using the RPC
The point of the exercise is to get young people to think about responsibility and allocate percentages to themselves, bad luck and others.
Using the moveable device: If you are using the moveable device the Centre has created then the allocation of percentagesis constrained by the device itself. Each section represents 20 per cent. If you look at it you will see the bottom base is red and contains5 segments for 'bad luck'. There are three moveable purple sections for 'others' and three green sections for 'me. This means that the way the RPC has been constructed effects the choices the pupil has.We have deliberately put it togetherso thatthe young personhas to accept at least 20 per cent of responsibility as one green section will always show. This is because it is best to start with the assumption that they also have some responsibility for what happened. If a pupil wanted to take 100 per cent responsibility then the RPC device may be redundant. If they only become aware of their complete responsibility when using the device they can always cover up all the other segments with their hand so that only green is visible. The important point to grasp here is that, depending on the situation, you may have to work round any constraints due to the way the device has been made.
Using Excel or Lego bricks: If you are using a method where there are no built in constraints please bear in mind that it is generally a good idea to suggest that a pupil assigns at least 20 per cent of responsibility for the incident tohim/herself. Obviously you can use your own judgement and not use this rule in cases where the young person was obviously not responsible and she/he is being asked to participate because of the involvement of other people.
It is useful when discussing responsibility with young people to try and avoid the words ‘blame’ and ‘fault’ and use the following terms instead:
· How much was … responsible for what happened?
· How much was what happened due to …?
· How much did this happen because of …?
· How much does … explain what happened?
Who should use it?
Playground buddies or prefects, auxiliary support staff with special responsibility for monitoring behaviour or teachers and senior staff can use the RPC. It is the basis for agreeing what happened and when it works well young people are less likely to adopt an ‘I blame everyone else’ attitude. At its best, it allows young people to move on from incidents and often there is no further need for punishment.