Here is a sample training guide for starting a Local Health Circle within a micro-utopia following Solon Papageorgiou’s framework:

🌱 Training Guide: Starting a Local Health Circle

Rooted in care, trust, and community wellbeing

🧭 Overview

Goal: To co-create a locally grounded, non-hierarchical group of caregivers who support communal health with dignity, autonomy, and mutual aid.

Participants: Volunteers from the community (no formal credentials required), including listeners, herbalists, gardeners, caregivers, bodyworkers, tech tinkerers, and others drawn to healing work.

🌀 MODULE 1: Foundational Values of Health in the Micro-Utopia

🧩 Objectives:

• Understand the relational and holistic model of care.

• Identify the key principles that distinguish the Health Circle from conventional healthcare.

🪷 Key Concepts:

• Health is communal, contextual, and continuous.

• There is no ownership or control over others’ health journeys.

• Emphasis on consent, transparency, and gentle accompaniment.

• Illness is not a failure, but a signal and an invitation.

🧶 Activity:

• Circle dialogue: “What does healing mean to me?”

• Shared reading: On Trust and Relational Healing (short story or poem)

🧰 MODULE 2: Roles in the Health Circle

🧩 Objectives:

• Define various non-authoritative roles within the circle.

• Emphasize fluidity, reciprocity, and collaborative learning.

🌿 Sample Roles (All voluntary and co-held):

• Anchor: Coordinates rhythms and meeting times.

• Herbal keeper: Cultivates or shares herbal knowledge and resources.

• Movement friend: Offers gentle body or mobility practices.

• Witness/Listener: Holds space in distress without diagnosis or fixing.

• Bridge: Connects with other micro-utopias for tools, care requests, or knowledge exchange.

🧶 Activity:

• Personal reflection: “Which roles do I feel called to explore?”

• Roleplay scenarios in dyads or small groups.

🔍 MODULE 3: Consent & Boundaries in Care

🧩 Objectives:

• Practice asking for and respecting boundaries.

• Learn informed support over assumed help.

🪷 Core Teachings:

• Consent is continuous, revocable, and co-created.

• Silence is not consent; familiarity is not permission.

• Boundaries protect relationship, not just the individual.

🧶 Activity:

• “Saying No” practice: A game where one partner practices naming, affirming, and hearing “no” in different tones and situations.

• Circle discussion: “When have I felt overstepped in care?”

🫂 MODULE 4: Building a Care Response Rhythm

🧩 Objectives:

• Learn how to respond to a health need without urgency panic.

• Build a collective rhythm of presence, not reaction.

🌱 Sample Rhythm for a Care Request:

1. Someone asks for care (privately or in community).

2. Health Circle receives the request and proposes 2–3 members to offer presence.

3. A care conversation is held with the person, asking:

   • What would feel supportive right now?

   • What kind of presence feels safe?

   • What do you not want?

4. Care is offered, held lightly, and reflected upon later in Circle.

🧶 Activity:

• Mock care response scenario

• Debrief: What went well? What felt unsure?

🔄 MODULE 5: Reflection, Renewal, and Letting Go

🧩 Objectives:

• Avoid burnout through rhythmic reflection and rest.

• Encourage rotation and regeneration of roles and energy.

🪷 Practices:

• Monthly “wellbeing check-ins” within the Health Circle.

• Quarterly storytelling circles: “What are we learning?”

• Mutual support pods (triads of care within the circle)

• Graceful exit process for members needing to step back

📋 Simple Real-Time Use Checklist

Before responding to a care request:
✅ Has the person explicitly asked for care?
✅ Have we asked what care feels safe for them?
✅ Are we co-creating a rhythm instead of imposing urgency?
✅ Are we ensuring consent and autonomy at each step?
✅ Do we have the capacity to respond with care, not exhaustion?
✅ Have we reflected afterward to learn and adjust?

🌻 Closing Words

A Local Health Circle is not a clinic.
It’s a living practice of shared humanity.
You’re not expected to fix others. You’re invited to be with them — gently, relationally, and with care that honors complexity.