Roots of Empathy is a social-skills program that turns babies into education’s youngest teachers.
Roots of Empathy – the social-skills program that turns babies into education’s youngest teachers – is recruiting a new crop of instructors, parents and infants to help reach an estimated 6,500 local students this fall.
ROE is seeking new instructors and parents with infants to visit some of the nearly 80 interested local elementary schools. Lessons involving babies help to reduce student aggression and cultivate positive social skills. Babies must be two to four months old when the program starts in October, 2010.
“I think it’s taken off just because of the great idea of taking babies into classrooms,” said program coordinator Tracey Webster, of lead agency Affiliated Services for Children and Youth. “Babies are so disarming that it’s easy for students to open up. Babies don’t judge you, they know nothing about you, and there is something magic about watching a baby.”
She said the volunteer instructors and parents with babies are crucial to its success.
“We often hear from classroom teachers and students how generous the parents have been, by sharing their baby’s first year of life with a group of strangers. But they are only strangers at the beginning, because of the bond that develops,” Webster adds.
The program, founded by Toronto educator Mary Gordon in 1996, has been in Hamilton for six years. It receives financial support from HWDSB, Teachers Credit Union and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board. Gordon has said: “Roots of Empathy is about changing the world classroom by classroom.”
Instructors must attend three days of training, clear a police check, pass a certification test, and deliver 27 lessons during the school year, among other requirements. In 2009-10, 38 HWDSB schools were part of the program.
Due to the cost of training, Roots of Empathy instructors are asked to commit their time for two to three years. The commitment requires 60 to 80 hours per school year. They accompany the parents and babies during half-hour-long classroom visits.
Jennifer Powell-Fralick, HWDSB supervisor of early learning and child care, recalled how impressed she was when she first visited a Toronto Roots of Empathy classroom visit, before it came to Hamilton. She is “humbled” by the success and growth of the program in Hamilton.
“We often hear the quote that ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ But I really think that ‘It takes a child to raise a village,’” she said.
New Roots of Empathy instructors must apply by August 4 to be trained August 25-27.
For more information please contact Tracey Webster at tracey.webster@wesleyurbanministries.ca or 905-547-5136.Have a great story? Submit it here.
