Cultivating empathy should be a topic of
significance for all of us in higher education as we invest in our students and
ourselves to engage with others in a more compassionate way. Research also supports the fact that
professionals who are able to demonstrate and convey empathy are more effective
in their work and that clients (and students) who experience empathetic
responses tend to have improved outcomes. We will be sharing a 3-step model for
teaching empathy that could be applied to a variety of professions, including
our discipline of social work. It is a model that incorporates cognitive,
affective and behavioral strategies designed to influence student understanding
of and ability to provide empathy to others. Together we will learn about the model and
practice some of the exercises. We will
also share a summary and results of five years of pre/post student data.