2019 Every Child Counts Symposium

Special Education compliance isn’t enough to avoid expensive and adversarial legal battles. Conflict resolution begins with connection to parents. Today’s sociologists opine that our collective empathy today has significantly declined from rates in longevity studies of thirty years ago. The decline can often be seen in non-productive staff relationships with parents, and is particularly evident at IEP meetings, even without conflict. In an attempt to show knowledge, staff may project a smarty pants, non-caring tone that will create barriers to relationships. Sociologists have now concluded that empathy is not innate after all, but is a group of skills that can be learned. Neuroscientists have identified mirror neurons that create brain connections with emotions of others. The primary goals of the presentation are twofold; to persuade participants that demonstrating empathy, particularly in IEP meetings, will significantly improve parent connections and decrease expensive and time-consuming conflict and that through professional development, staff can learn to increase and apply their empathy skill sets.