A new not-for-profit organisation founded in 2014 (led by Miranda McKearney formerly of The Reading Agency)  Empathy Lab’s vision Read stories Build empathy Make a better world

2.  A partnership between the Wellcome
Trust and Carnegie UK Trust .The
outcome of joint work between the
Wellcome Trust and the Society of Chief
Librarians.
 Engaging Libraries has provided grants
for 14 public libraries projects across the
UK and Ireland to pilot creative and
imaginative public engagement projects
on health and wellbeing.

3. Public engagement involves creating an
opportunity for people to consider,
participate and debate ideas.
A two-way process, which may involve
activities like participation,
conversation, interaction and listening.

4. A partnership
between:
• Essex,
• St Helens,
• Sheffield
• Libraries
Unlimited
(Devon)
• Empathy Lab

5.  A new not-for-profit organisation founded in
2014 (led by Miranda McKearney formerly of
The Reading Agency)
 Empathy Lab’s vision
Read stories
Build empathy
Make a better world

6. • To engage local children and their families in
identifying issues of concern to their communities
• For those children and their families to work with
partner authors to create engagement activities
that can be shared with the wider community on
Empathy Day to open up wider conversation/action
about those issues

7.  A new national day founded in 2017
by EmpathyLab
 To raise awareness of the importance of
empathy
 To promote the work of schools over the year
and showcase partner authors
 To engage parents and children in a new way
of enjoying books through public libraries

9.  Affective - This is where we literally resonate
with someone else’s feelings, for example
feeling upset when someone else is upset.
 Cognitive - This is where we use our reason
and imagination to work out how someone
else feels.
 Empathic concern - our drive to help others.
Research shows this is a powerful motivator
for wanting to help someone else, a force for
social change..

10.  Empathy is a core life skill. Without empathy young
people will struggle to collaborate, listen well or form
strong relationships. In the workplace, they will find
team working very hard. Public Health England
research shows that social and emotional skills are
more significant for young people’s academic
attainment than their IQ. Of these skills, empathy is
increasingly recognised as pivotal.
 Empathy is key to relationships, helping children
become great partners, co-workers and citizens. It is
the foundation of learning, because it creates the
necessary feeling of safety and also builds
collaborative skills.

11.  Neuroscience evidence shows that immersion
in quality literature is an effective way to
build empathy skills.
 Research studies show that the brain reacts
to fictional worlds as if they were real, and
this helps us practice our social skills. As we
read, our brains are tricked into thinking
we’re genuinely part of the story.
 So the empathic emotions we feel for
characters wires our brains to have the same
sort of sensitivity towards real people.

12. Libraries
and
empathy
Promoting
great
empathy
reads
Dealing
with
customers
Talking to
children
Understand
community
Helping
children
understand
their lives
and the lives
of others
Supporting
community
resilience

13. Nov/Dec
• Engaging local communities – talking about the issues of concern
19 Feb
• An Empathy Hack in London –reps from each authority work with an
author and psychologist
April
• Work with your author to plan an Empathy Café in May - to develop an
engagement event on Empathy Day
May
•Empathy Café author, children and families
12 June
•Empathy Day

14.  Have a paper wall in the library where people stick post it notes over
a week/month – staff need to be encouraging people to take part
 Engage people via local social media accounts
 Have a comments book in the library –staff need to encourage
people to take part
 Talk to parents and carers post rhyme times
 Talk to partners
 Talk to community groups
 Ask local schools
 Press releases
 Ask people to write ‘issue cards’
 Collate the information gathered at each location to underpin the
Empathy Cafés in May and the Empathy Day events in June

15.  Brenee Brown – The different between Empathy and Sympathy
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw
 Sesame Street and Mark Ruffalo discuss empathy
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pGDdoF0ZZ0
 Raymond Mar on fiction and empathy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z-
DyF9D-ww&t=204s
 Empathy by Roman Krznaric, Rider, 2014
 The Empathy Instinct by Peter Bazalgette, John Murray, 2017
 Children and Empathy
 Unselfie: Why Empathetic kids succeed in All-About-Me-World by Michele Borba,
Touchstone, 2016
 Settling Troubled Children to Learn (Chapter 8) by Louise Michelle Bomber and
Daniel A. Hughes, Worth Publishing 2013 (focused on schools but equally valid in
libraries)

16. www.empathylab.uk
@EmpathyLabUK
Empathy Day is on 12th
June, on the theme of
‘Read, Share, Do.’
Please visit the website
– every library is
welcome to take part.
Peters Booksellers also
has an Empathy booklist
available soon.
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