Haiku as a creative writing approach to explore empathy with social work students: A classroom-based inquiry

Empathy is a familiar term in social work and it is considered to be a crucial ingredient in therapeutic helping. The primary aim of a recent classroom-based inquiry was to explore the concept of empathy with second year social work students studying at a regional Australian university. The use of haiku as a creative writing approach to explore empathy is identified. The findings reveal a number of client contexts that might hinder students' empathy, with the most frequently identified context being family violence and child abuse. It is concluded here that cultivating empathy in social work education is a necessity and the use of creative writing can assist in this endeavour.