elicited. At the end of training, participants are asked to name one positive thing they learned
about themselves and one thing they wanted to work on. One girl said, “I learned that I am a great
friend. I’m loyal. And I’m reliable.” She then said, “And I want to learn how to trust people more,
because I see how good it feels.” We believe this openness and willingness to connect with and
trust others greatly enhances the potential for transformation.
5. Compassion
Compassion naturally arises through the cultivation of the preceding steps, yet is deepened
through continued reflection, practice and social engagement. In our programs, we invite children
to brainstorm ways that they can be compassionate, or ways in which their class can perform a
service activity together. This can come in many forms (through “random acts of kindness” days, or
volunteering at a local shelter), and can be supported and encouraged by teachers, parents and
staff through community-wide work as well. We also enjoy reading stories or showing
documentaries of altruism and heroism from the news to our adolescent students as well as
reading books on kindness to our younger children. Real-life examples help ground the practice of
compassion for our students and enable them to recognize that it is not an ideal, but rather
something that they too can enact.
Future Training Directions
We raise the notion of community-organized practices because we recognize that a systems-
approach to compassion training, which does not focus on the individual alone, could have a
greater impact on interpersonal dynamics, and may also begin to effect structural change as well.
To this end, we have begun to develop a training program for foster providers and are looking for
ways to deliver this training in group foster homes for maximum effect. Last year we designed and
piloted a peer-training program for students who had completed at least one round of the CBCT
program, and who showed the potential to co-facilitate CBCT courses with one of our instructors.
This program aimed not only to help develop a group of well-trained peer leaders, but also to help
empower these adolescents to recognize and embody their strength and leadership potential. We
are currently developing programs to support parents and teachers as well (see also
and
). Our experience with training CBCT in foster homes and schools suggests that there is
tremendous potential for compassion- and mindfulness-based programs for addressing suffering
throughout the lifespan starting in early ages. We believe the long-term success of these programs
also depends upon the seamless integration of these practices into individuals’ daily lives as well
as the fabric of the community.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Brendan Ozawa-de Silva for his significant contribution to the projects
described here. We also wish to thank our collaborators at the Paideia School, especially Barbara
Dunbar and Kelly Richards, and Aazem Salehi and Rachel Willis at Morningside Public School.
Thanks also to our friends at the Department of Family and Child Services in Atlanta, GA, who
made our work possible. Special thanks to Chuck Raison, Tad Pace, Philippe Rochat, Erin
Robbins, Dave Saunders, Jordan Kohn, Allison Williams, Sheethal Reddy, Linda Craighead and all
other members of our research team.
Our deepest gratitude goes to our students, who gave so much of themselves in these programs
and continue to inspire us so deeply in this work.
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