Empathways

"Coming into a counseling session with a lens of compassion and empathy can lead to mutual respect and greater internalization of health advice."

Developed by Breakthrough ACTION, Empathways is a 3-round card deck designed to spark discussion and joint reflection between young people and family planning (FP) service providers. The tool aims to develop provider empathy for young clients and to encourage providers to pull from this empathy to deliver more youth-centred FP and contraceptive services. Designed for use in pairs of young people and FP service providers, Empathways can be used in provider trainings, during programme or research design, and more.

Empathways' three rounds take participants on a journey to:

1. Open up: To help participants develop rapport.
2. Discover: To explore the factors that impact FP attitudes and service delivery.
3. Connect: To reflect on service delivery scenarios and invite providers to commit to improving youth FP service delivery.

The original version of Empathways has been used in healthcare provider trainings in Liberia and Kenya, among other countries. For instance, Breakthrough ACTION worked with the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders in Liberia to organise 2-day interpersonal communication and counseling (IPCC) training workshops in 10 counties between June and July 2022. In each county, the master trainers invited three young people to participate in the Empathways sessions and demonstrated how to use the tool with three providers. Post-training qualitative monitoring reports showed a gradual improvement in service providers' attitudes toward young clients. Feedback gathered from clients and service providers showed that providers had improved their client-centred communication, empathy, and counseling skills with youth. A young client from Montserrado County said, "This way of working with us (young people) is actually good. It makes it easy to speak freely about our problems. If this continues, it will make more young people to feel free to come to hospital."

Also available are: Community Empathways, an adaptation by Breakthrough ACTION in Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Niger, and Togo for use between youth and community leaders who impact FP norms, and Empathways Gen-N, an adaptation by Jhpiego under the EpiC and RISE projects in Nigeria for use between youth and HIV and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) providers.