The Roots of Empathy program, designed to connect school students with local babies and families in order to teach empathy and understanding, has now finished its fifth year in the Crowsnest Pass. To celebrate this milestone, all participating families over the years were invited to take part in an anniversary gathering at Flumerfelt Park on Thursday, May 28.
Through the program, students get to watch a baby grow over the course of a school year. Getting to observe a baby’s emotions and learn how to empathize and be more careful with the feelings of others.
“It’s initial information you need to get out there to kids of a young age,” says Bonita Bourlon, Family School Liaison Counsellor, who is one of the program’s three primary instructors along with Kim Lewis and Tracey Linderman.

“We have seen it have an impact on kids already,” says Bourlon. “The kids in the program always love it. But it’s long term.”
The hope, she says, is that the program will help create a more safe, more caring community in the future as these children grow and become our next generation of residents.
With the program running for five years, some of the babies who took part are now headed into Kindergarten themselves, and could one day be on the student end of the program.
Roots of Empathy has been in Grades One, Three, Four, Five, and Seven over its five years, and 31 babies have taken part. In the coming school year, the program will be in Grades One and Four.