Five Finger Contract

1. Extend your hand with all five fingers showing to your group.
2. Announce that each of your five fingers represents one critical component of healthy and respectful group norms.
3. Point to each of your fingers as you announce what each of them represents:
   – Pinky – Safety
   – Ring Finger – Commitment
   – Middle Finger – Awareness
   – Pointer Finger – Taking Responsibility
   – Thumb – Agreement
4. Allow a few minutes to seek an understanding of each of the five tenets.
5. Invite your group to agree to work towards these ideals.
6. Periodically revisit this agreement for developmental and reflection purposes.

Many times it is difficult to know where to begin when attempting to create a safe and respectful community – the Five Finger Contract is a great place to start.

Extend your palm facing forward with all five fingers extended to your group. Sometimes I even invite my group to mimic my gesture.

At this point, I explain that I’m about to introduce a very simple, but hopefully memorable system that will guide the behaviours of our group. The keys here are (a) that it will be simple, and (b) it will be easy to remember.

Point to each of your fingers one at a time, as you announce what each of them represents:

• Pinky – Safety because it’s the smallest and most vulnerable finger
• Ring Finger – Commitment and willingness to let things go and not hold grudges
• Middle Finger – Awareness of put-downs
• Pointer Finger – Taking Responsibility for our actions instead of pointing blame
• Thumb – Agreement to work toward individual and group goals, ie as in thumbs up.

If you think the use of an acronym may help, so I sometimes refer to this model as SCATA (pronounced as “scatter.”)

To reinforce their understanding, take a few moments to discuss what each finger or tenet means in the context of creating and maintaining healthy and supportive relationships.

From this point, your primary role is to remind your group about the existence of this agreement and, where necessary, revisit it periodically to invite them to reflect on how well they are working towards a safe learning space.

It’s important to set the right tone at the very beginning of this activity. Indeed, I would strongly recommend that you carefully consider your sequence leading into your conversation so that it does not appear to look like that you are imposing a set of rules.

Consider upgrading this short-hand agreement to a more significant Full Value Agreement when your group is ready to invest more voice and agency in the development of their cultural norms.

Sometimes, all I need to do is to stop my group mid-way through an activity, ask them to extend their hand out in front of themselves and reflect on what each of their fingers means.

You could integrate the Five Finger Contract as part of a well-designed SEL program to promote and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse people.

Specifically, this activity offers ample opportunities to explore and practice the following social & interpersonal skills:

Self-Awareness

• Linking Feelings, Values & Thoughts
• Demonstrating Self-Confidence, Honesty & Integrity
• Experiencing Self-Efficacy
• Having A Growth Mindset

Self-Management

• Demonstrating Self-Discipline & Self-Motivation
• Setting Personal & Group Goals
• Taking Initiative
• Use Planning & Organisational Skills

Social Awareness

• Taking Other’s Perspectives
• Demonstrating Empathy & Compassion
• Understanding & Expressing Gratitude
• Appreciating Diversity
• Respecting Others

Relationship Skills

• Communicate & Listen Effectively
• Seeking and/or Offering Support
• Build Positive Relationships
• Demonstrate Cultural Competency
• Work Collaboratively
• Showing Leadership
• Resolving Conflict Constructively

Responsible Decision-Making

• Demonstrating Curiosity & Open-Mindedness
• Anticipating & Evaluating the Consequences of One’s Actions
• Promoting Personal & Collective Well-Being

You can learn more about SEL and how it can support character education here.

Behavioural Norms

This tool is purposefully designed to help you and your group explore, discuss and develop a simple framework that can be easily recalled and applied to govern their social interactions. The five tenets are not designed to cover every social instance or issue, but it is certainly a very simple way to start these types of conversations. Remember, your primary role is to create this framework in advance and then to review it periodically when it’s useful for your group to reflect on their behaviours and interactions. When ready to upgrade to a more significant conversation, take a look at some of the more complex alternatives described in the Variations tab.

Accountability

Connected to the existence of a behavioural framework is, of course, the invitation for your group to take responsibility for their actions, ie they go hand in hand. In a sense, the Five Finger Contract can be viewed as a goal-setting tool.

• Written Expression: Record each of the five tenets – and their understanding – on flip chart paper or the whiteboard to keep this agreement in existence. As a final touch, ask everyone to dip their thumb into ink or paint and then mark their thumbprint on the paper to record their understanding and commitment to the agreement.
• DIY Tenets – Create a different set of five tenets or invite your group to develop them to increase buy-in and ownership of the agreement.
• Take a look at Tin Can Pass to enjoy a more physically demanding group task that can be adapted for the express purpose of exploring behavioural norms.
• Take a look at Palm Tree and The Being as another two practical tools that will also help your group develop a full value agreement.
• Open the Virtual Adaptation tab to learn how to present this activity online.

• Other than the fact each person will be located remotely, this exercise can be easily presented in a virtual context. To assist comprehension, you may wish to create a slide that shows an open hand with each of the five fingers represented by their role, eg Safety, Commitment, Awareness, Taking Responsibility and Agreement.
• To save time, you can download a simple Five Finger Contract slide from the Resources tab.

We only have a short time together today, but it is still really useful to discuss the sorts of behaviours that will be acceptable – and not so acceptable – to guide our interactions during the day…

Research clearly indicates that those groups which invest the time and energy to frame and agree to the way they will “be” or behave with one another are the most successful in terms of increased participation, stronger relationships and improved performance. Does this sound like something you’d like to achieve…?

Can everybody hold up one of their hands with all five fingers extended, just like mine? Each of these fingers is a reminder to us about what will help make our time together a safe and positive place for all of us…

Coupled with one or more reflection strategies, here are some sample questions you could use to process your group’s experience after leading this simple teambuilding tool:

• In your own words, how do you define each of the five tenets of our agreement?
• One at a time, what do they look like, sound like and feel like?
• What should we do as a group when one or more of these tenets is not honoured?
• How can we celebrate when these aspirations are achieved?