PATH Circles
We have been offering supported circles to our community for connection and community around sexual abuse that has happened in our community since February 2023.  Starting in a June 2023, we added circles open only to  those who have experienced sexual abuse at the academy or elsewhere. Our first monthly circle each month will be for the larger Exeter community to share concerns, impact, and ideas about Exeter’s history and response to Sexual abuse on our campus. Our second monthly circle will be for those who have experienced sexual abuse at Exeter or elsewhere as support circle for connection and community.

Dates (times are eastern time zone) :

November 15, 6 pm EST (for concerned alumni as well as survivors interested in discussion of community impact)

November 23, 11 am EST (for sexual abuse survivors who were abused at Exeter or elsewhere only. These circles are for connection around personal impact)

Register Here

Sexual abuse affects the whole community. PATH (PEA Alumni for Truth & Healing) continues to offer supported circles to process how sexual misconduct has affected our community and to support survivors of sexual abuse. These facilitated circles will be small online zoom forums for a maximum of six participants at the time. The circles are for all alumni of Phillips Exeter Academy who are not current employees or trustees of the school. We create a safe confidential container for dialogue. We request all participants agree to the following guidelines

Community Circle Guidelines:

  • Confidentiality-We ask you not to reference anything shared in these circles that is personal in nature or reference anyone who came to these circles without explicit permission from that person. Leaders are included in this agreement. 
  • Please limit what you share to your own experience. Please do not speak on another’s behalf.
  • These forums are for sharing and listening, please refrain from debate or persuasion and judging or correcting what other’s have expressed. 
  • Please respect the order of speaking and only speak when the circle comes around to you.
  • Please hold sensitivity for the experience of survivors. Can you share what you wish to share with this sensitivity as there are likely survivors present.
  • Please hold assumption of goodwill for all present.
  • In consideration of time please consider before you speak what you most want to share, contribute, and be heard for. Please balance your full expression with the time available for all to allow.

***You are welcome to explicitly identify as a survivor, but in care of yourself and all present who are not professionally trained to support this, please refrain from any new disclosures of abuse.

Survivor Circle Guidelines:

For safety and predictability these circles are for survivors only and are not set up for processing trauma. The intention is for support and the prompts will focus on how you are doing in the present with relation to abuse in the past. These circles are for building community and a sense of shared reality with a goal to feel places of commonality, identify needs, and what has helped healing for you. 

  • Confidentiality-We ask you not to reference anything shared in these circles that is personal in nature or reference anyone who came to these circles outside these circles without explicit permission from that person. Leaders are included in this agreement. These forums are for sharing and listening, and while the shared experience of abuse is implicitly understood and welcome, speak in care of yourself and all present who are not professionally trained. Checking in is helpful
  • Please speak only of your own experience.
  • Please hold others words with care and respect without judging or correcting.
  • Please hold sensitivity as all of us present are survivors.
  • Have patience and inquire prior to any assumption and offer goodwill for all present.
  • While time is limited, this is an invitation to share, and be welcome to do so. Please limit yourself only in order to preserve time for others.
  • Respect the circle process and speak when it is your turn in the circle order posted in the chat. if you do not feel ready or don’t want to, simply say pass. It will come back to you and you can speak from more readiness.

 

Circles will be facilitated by Ann Malabre ’81 who has a Master’s Degree in the Art of Teaching and has been trained in facilitation and circle process. At the Bay Area Nonviolent leadership Program she was trained by Roxy Manning, Kit Miller, and Miki Kashtan.  Ann facilitated groups and led workshops with all three of these teachers over four years. For the past eight years Ann has supported programming and is a one-on-one coach in trauma recovery in the work of Sarah Peyton. In addition, she he has received Training from Kay Pranis in facilitating circle process. Ann is a circle keeper with Hidden Water an organization that provides restorative Healing Circles with the aim to transform life after child sexual abuse from an isolating experience of quiet shame into one marked by strength, dignity, and collective healing.

Larry Bouchie ’79 will be the second facilitator for current circles.

Other PATH members may assist and support these circles. We intend to have two leaders supporting all circles.