Engage in the skill of preparatory empathy as if you were about to meet the parents of several children shot

and killed in a school shooting. Record your thoughts and feelings.
Case Situation: Assume that you are a social worker at a local mental health center. One early morning, a gunman
opened fire in an elementary school killing several children. You have been asked to meet with some of the parents
of the children who were killed to offer them supportive services.



What will be an ideal response?


ANS: Students' answers will vary. Preparatory empathy involves envisioning the world and the current
circumstances from another person or group's perspective and experience. Try to anticipate what others are likely to
sense, feel, think, imagine, and do as they meet with you, especially for the first time but for later meetings as well.
Even before an initial face-to-face meeting, anticipatory empathy heightens your sensitivity to possible agendas,
thoughts, feelings about themselves, feelings about you, the presenting problems and issues, and the circumstances.
Through preparatory empathy, you try to anticipate others' subjective experience related to seeking or receiving
social service and to this particular meeting with you. Put yourself in others' shoes to gain increased appreciation for
their motivations and feelings about the contact, their thoughts and feelings about engaging with an authority figure,
and potential issues related to factors such as gender, sexual orientation, stage of life, culture, ethnic background,
and socioeconomic status

Social Work & Human Services

You might also like to view...

In which step of the strategies intervention model (SIM) does the teacher “think aloud” as students witness the

entire process? a. Teacher models the strategy. b. Teacher describes the strategy. c. Student verbally rehearses. d. Student practices with controlled material. e. Teacher pretests students.

Social Work & Human Services

Identify in your answer the common link found among the various somatic symptom and

related disorders.

a) The disorders all originate from anxiety b) The disorders share a common feeling of fear c) The individual is pathologically concerned with the functioning of their body rather than the absence of a medical explanation d) The etiology is understood as a biological vulnerability

Social Work & Human Services

In the context of depression, ________ refers to how often one feels depressed.

A. precipitation B. frequency C. severity D. regulation E. duration

Social Work & Human Services

Emergency protection order from a judge is sought when parents

a. abandon the children b. severely injure or kill them c. sexually abuse them d. all of the above

Social Work & Human Services