FLS – Building Rapport

H.E.A.R – Key principles to build and maintain rapport:

• Honesty – to develop trust.
• Empathy – to demonstrate emotional understanding.
• Autonomy – to ensure people feel they have freedom to choose.
• Reflection – to demonstrate understanding of the other persons perspective.

Empathy requires:

• Critical self-awareness
• Willingness to try and understand the others experience.
• To endeavour to identify the core values and beliefs that inform why person behaves the way they do.

Reflection requires repeating back in a considered way, different ways to reflect include:

• S – simple paraphrasing
• O – on the one hand (showing alternatives)
• N – no arguing (validate their experience)
• A – affirmation (identify positive)
• R – reframing