I hope that you all have had a wonderful week. I think this week’s “lab day” will be a useful class for everybody and I’m looking forward to seeing all of you.
Unit Introduction and What You Will Learn
The focus of week six for SOWK 486 is continuing our growth and engagement with communication skills. Last week we went deeper on authenticity or genuineness. We also started some focus on empathic responding. Week six is described as a lab day, because the intention is focusing on activities to help develop skills. The activities we will be doing this week include:
- What’s you’ve learned so far
- Teaching empathy to clients
- Following skills
- Sharing following skills
- Practice with labeling empathetic levels
- Practice implementing following skills
Unit Resources
In our discussion about what we have been learning, we are going to loosely follow a restorative practices format of having discussions in circles. If you are interested in some of what this entails you can watch Core Processes of Restorative Justice Circles. We won’t be implementing every part, but it is a good primer.
We will be talking about teaching empathy to our clients. Stepien and Baernstein (2006) provide a meta-analysis of research which could be helpful.
Stepien, K. A., & Baernstein, A. (2006). Educating for empathy. A review. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21(5), 524-530. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1525-1497.2006.00443.x
You can find all of the presentations that I’ve done at presentations.jacobrcampbell.com. The slides for this week, SOWK 486 - Week 06 - Communication Skills Lab Day
View SOWK 486 - Week 06 - Communication Skills Lab Day.
Unit Assignments
Attend class and participate.
To Do Lists
- A–01: Class Attendance and Participation: Attend class
- Consider reading extra/supportive materials