Unlike genograms, ecomaps are a very important tool that show us who a child or young person sees as important to them, who their close relationships are with and how they view the adults around them. Ecomaps can be used in conjunction with other information that we know about a child or young person to build a picture of the context in which they live, and what their daily experiences are like. We will explain how to build an ecomap with a young person, using common symbols and terminology.
What is an ecomap?
Unlike genograms, which are very structured and show the make-up of a young person’s family, ecomaps are a visual means for a young person to show who is in their network (be that family, friends, neighbours, school staff) and what sort of relationships they have with them. Developing an ecomap with a child or young person can identify the context in which they live, who they feel aligned to, or if they are isolated in certain areas.
Example ecomap
Harry, represented by the green circle in the middle of the image, is a pupil at your school. Through working with him you have developed the following ecomap.
Note: This image is computer generated to allow ease of reading across devices – ecomaps are often best done when hand drawn by the individual concerned.
Initially, it may look confusing, but let’s break it down and look at what the individual parts of the ecomap are telling us.
Click on each thumbnail to find out more.
You can see there is a lot of information that can be stored for quick access using an ecomap. There are few hard and fast rules that relate to an ecomap:
- Always use a large sheet of paper and ensure that the child or young person is in the centre of the paper. The exercise often works well when cut out shapes are used. These can be moved around as required before the final version is stuck down.
- The strength of relationships can be illustrated however the young person feels they want to do it. It’s important there is a key so that the ecomap can be understood. The key used in the example above is the generally accepted common standard.
- The distance between the different people is important because this shows how close the child or young person feels to someone.
- Date the ecomap – things change and it’s useful to see when ecomaps were created and this evidences how things have changed.
Although this example is mostly black and white, colour is good. This is the child or young person’s creation and we should give them as much free reign as possible because this will increase their level of ownership of the document.
