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In this toolkit, we will explore ways to maintain a compassionate presence in our interactions with students, families, and colleagues. The rationale for this work as described in the introduction, points to many positive outcomes for us and others. It turns out that coming from a mindset of compassion greatly contributes to our job and life satisfaction.
Simply put, Compassion is concern for the wellbeing of others. It includes both the awareness of others’ distress coupled with a desire to alleviate it. At the same time that we desire to alleviate another’s distress, we also are confronted with the reality that we cannot “fix” another person’s pain. Throughout this toolkit we will explore our professional role in alleviating student, colleague and other’s distress while maintaining our well-being, in other words, we will focus on growing our compassion resilience.
Compassionate Action Steps – Scenarios for Discussion
Video: Excerpts from Section 1 Activities (https://youtu.be/gzLYhP8Nj88)
An Invitation to Explore Resistance
Introduction to Staff Circles Agenda
This is a great place to start if your team is not use to receiving training in a circle format. Even if your team is use to circles, there are components of this agenda that would be helpful to include in your first Compassion Resilience circle, such as setting group agreements.
Staff Circle Agenda, Section One
This document arranges the core content in section one into a 45-60 minute agenda. It is one of many ways to facilitate the content in this section. Please make revisions to fit the needs and time restrictions of your group.
Compassionate Action Steps – Use this Visual and Display in Staff Break Areas
Posting this visual in common staff areas will serve as a reminder of content covered to staff and perhaps serve as a future conversation started for deeper reflection among staff members.
Tips for Moving from Empathy to Engaging the Person in Discerning Best Action
You can find all documents in this section included in this pdf for easy printing.
The documents included are numbered individually, not as one document.
Brene Brown Empathy video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw)
Conversations about Compassion – The Compassionate Instinct (https://backend.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/conversation_compassion_0.pdf)
Topic two on pages 13-15 of this guide focuses on compassion as a human instinct. Facilitate a conversation using the questions on page 14 related to the compassionate instinct in the school setting.
10 Principles of Organizational Culture (https://www.strategy-business.com/media/file/sb82_10_Principles_of_Organizational_Culture.pdf)
Use this article with your leadership team to discuss organizational change and how these principles apply to your school.
10 Principles for Organization Culture Visual (https://strategy-business.com/feature/10-Principles-of-Organizational-Culture?gko=1f9d7)
Collective Compassionate Actions: A Response to Child Traumas of COVID-19 – YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8d1OTZanqs)
