Mary introduced Allyson Watson and Lisa MacIntosh of Roots of Empathy.

This program was developed to break the cycle of violence and poor parenting in families and was established in Ontario in 1996.  It has spread across Canada and is in Europe and Australia.

A family with a 2 month old baby visits a classroom 9 times in one school year along with an instructor who attends 2 additional classes for each family visit.

The baby becomes the centre for learning empathy and emotional attachment allowing children to explore what they think and how they feel.  This interaction increases positive social behaviour and decreases aggression and depression.  They develop empathy for others, both cognitive empathy, understanding the perspective of other people, and affirmative empathy, the emotional perspective.

A proposal for financial support will be presented to the club's Board of Directors at the next board meeting.  The hope is to bring Roots of Empathy to three classrooms next year at a cost of $1500 per class being the amount that is not covered through other supports.