Positive personal poems

You’ll need

Pens or pencils
A4 paper

Before you begin

Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. There's also more guidance to help you carry out your risk assessment, including examples.
Make sure all young people and adults involved in the activity know how to take part safely.
Make sure you’ll have enough adult helpers. You may need some parents and carers to help.

Planning and setting up this activity

This activity is a fun way to encourage reflection on personal strengths and qualities. This can help build self-awareness and emotional intelligence, which are important skills for working or building relationships with others.
An acrostic is a poem or word composition where the first letter of each line spells out a word when read vertically. It’s often used in creative writing or as a memory tool.
You may wish for adults to check or oversee what people are writing to make sure it remains positive or to highlight any concerns, inappropriate content, or signs of someone needing support. Always follow the Yellow Card and find our bullying and mental health support guidance.

Running this activity

Give everyone two pieces of paper and ask them to write their name on each.
On one piece of paper, people should write down all the positive words and good qualities they think they have. They may wish to add why. You could think about moments when you’ve felt proud of yourself or handled a difficult situation. What helped you get through it? What strengths did you use? If you’re unsure, think about compliments you’ve received in the past.
Once they’re finished, they should fold this piece of paper up and put it in a pocket.
When everyone’s ready, everyone should take their second, blank piece of paper and put them together in the middle of the space.
Give everyone ten minutes and ask them to go around and write positive words on each person’s piece of paper. It should be anonymous and only include positive things, such as qualities or traits they think someone has. You could put some music on while people do this.
When everyone’s finished, everyone should find their sheet of paper and see what positive qualities people think they have. They should compare it to the qualities they wrote about themselves. How do they compare? Does anything surprise them? How does it make them feel good about themselves?
Now, you’re going to create an acrostic poem, all about you. Take another piece of paper and write down your name vertically.
For each letter in your name, think of a positive trait, strength or quality that reflects you. For example:

S - Supportive
C - Caring
O - Optimistic
U - Understanding
T - Teamwork

You may wish to decorate the poem or create a border.
People may wish to keep their poem to themselves and that’s OK. It’s a very personal thing and no-one should be made to share what they’ve written if they don’t want to.
If anyone finishes early, they could create a poem for someone else, such as a friend or family member.

Reflection

This activity was all about recognising the positives in yourself and others to help build self-awareness and emotional intelligence. How did this activity make you feel?

You had two different lists of positive words, one written by you and one by everybody else. Were there any positives you wrote about yourself that also appeared on the list other people wrote about you? Did anything surprise you? How easy or difficult was it to think about the positives about yourself? And what was it like thinking about the positives of other people?

Sometimes it’s harder to see the positives in us, but easy to see them in our friends. How did you feel about yourself before this activity? And what about after this activity? Has it changed how you see yourself? What could you do to make sure you tell people what you value or appreciate about them? For example, you could try to give out at least one compliment a day. Recognising and appreciating the good things in other people can help you build stronger relationships and work more effectively with others

We can also work on our qualities too. For example, we might want to get better at active listening. Is there anything you’d like to develop more in yourself? Are there any life skills you’d like to develop to help you become more independent and prepared for the future?

Safety

All activities must be safely managed. You must complete a thorough risk assessment and take appropriate steps to reduce risk. Use the safety checklist to help you plan and risk assess your activity. Always get approval for the activity, and have suitable supervision and an InTouch process.

You must run your activities in line with the Safeguarding Code of Conduct for Adults (Yellow Card) and report any concerns to the UK HQ Safeguarding Team.