Forgiveness News
New Manual for School Counselors — An Introduction to Forgiveness for Adolescents
A new forgiveness intervention manual for at-risk middle school and high school students is now available from the International Forgiveness Institute (IFI)—at no cost.
Forgiveness Over Revenge: Grief, Insight and Virtue through Education (F.O.R.G.I.V.E.) is a training manual intended to serve as an introduction to the topic of forgiveness, both for school counselors and adolescents. The manual is not meant to serve as a diagnostic or therapeutic tool. Instead, it may be used to introduce the topic of forgiveness and to provide hands-on experience practicing forgiveness-related thought processes and exercises.
Counselors who opt to use the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual are provided with ten lessons, each approximately one hour in length. In the first five, students learn the basics of forgiveness, both what it is and what it is not. The remaining five lessons focus on applying the process of forgiveness through targeted activities in a group setting. Instructors may use their observations over the course of the ten sessions to better understand youths’ relationship to forgiveness and to make possible referrals for more directed forgiveness therapy when
appropriate.
The new manual was developed, designed and written by Dayana Kupisk, a current graduate student at the University of Wisconsin – 
Madison, who spent a semester studying forgiveness under the direction of Dr. Robert Enright, founder of the IFI. She additionally has experience facilitating life skills and employment training to groups of at-risk youth, which greatly informed her approach for translating research-based information on forgiveness into creative activities that may be done with groups of youth.
“This manual is intended for professional counselors with training to do group counseling with middle school and high school students,” according to Kupisk. “Since it contains therapeutic content, in which students focus on forgiving people who have hurt them, it is not for general classroom use, either by teachers or by counselors. Instead, this manual is intended for short-term group counseling with students who have been referred for treatment within the school setting.”
Kupisk said she wants the F.O.R.G.I.V.E. manual distributed to as many potential users as possible. To accomplish that, she decided to allow the IFI to add the manual to its growing compilation of forgiveness intervention manuals and curriculum guides and to offer it at no cost. The manual can be ordered through the IFI website Store.
The International Forgiveness Institute, based in Madison, WI, is the only worldwide organization that focuses exclusively on forgiveness education for students from pre-kindergarten through high school. The Institute’s school forgiveness programs are operating in the U.S. and 30 other countries.
New Study: Forgiveness Makes Kids Happier
It might be worth our while to move beyond “I’m sorry” as the be-all and end-all goal of conflict resolution for children. To raise happier children, we should take steps that lead to a lot more “I forgive you’s.”
That’s one of the dramatic take-aways of a just-completed study by three researchers at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. In a sample of 275 nine- to 13-year-olds who completed self-reported and behavioral measures of forgiveness and various indicators of psychological well-being, the study found that forgiveness can help children maintain strong relationships and improve psychological well-being.
According to the authors, it’s long been known that peer and friendship relations in late childhood play an essential role in children’s social, emotional, and cognitive development. The research shows that friendships are associated with a greater sense of well-being, better self-esteem, and fewer social problems, both concurrently and later in life.
In contrast, children and adolescents who lack close friendships are more likely to manifest behavioral and emotional problems during childhood and even adulthood. Children who are less forgiving have lower self-esteem, are more socially anxious, and are more likely to engage in deviant behaviors.
The study also emphasized the need for early childhood forgiveness education, particularly during stages in which friendships are most important, such as in early childhood when children start to untie their parental bonds and increasingly focus on relationships with peers. In late adolescence, when the emphasis shifts from friendships to partner relationships, or during adulthood, when individuals spend less time with their friends, the association between forgiving friends and well-being may be weaker.
Read more:
Does Forgiveness Make Kids Happier?
⇒ An article in Greater Good, the Science of a Meaningful Life
Interpersonal Forgiveness and Psychological Well-being in Late Childhood ⇒ Access to the complete study
Why We Need Forgiveness Education. . .NOW
⇒ A blog post by Dr. Robert Enr
Just Released: New Training Video by Dr. Enright – “Forgiveness Therapy in Practice”
Forgiveness is the process of uncovering and letting go of anger at someone who has caused pain. This process can be the path to healing in many situations, as anger is frequently at the core of a client’s issues and may be the center of a number of disorders.
The forgiveness therapy model is flexible enough to be integrated into any therapeutic approach. Fostering forgiveness in therapy involves uncovering the depth of the client’s anger, obtaining commitment to forgive, and working on being able to forgive. The final phase of this therapy is the discovery of meaning in what has been suffered, finding a new purpose in life, and exploring one’s own faults and the need to be forgiven by others.
In this 100-minute video program, Dr. Enright demonstrates his approach to forgiveness therapy with a female client who feels hurt by her mother.
This video, produced by the APA, is not available for sale on this website.
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“Forgiveness is a decision. . . a daily decision.”
WOWO News-Talk Radio, Indianapolis, Ind., USA – A 28-year-old mother was fatally shot during an apparent robbery at her home in Indianapolis last November. Police say she was beaten and sexually assaulted before she was killed.
Amanda Blackburn was 12-weeks pregnant with her second child at the time of her death. Now, Amanda’s husband, Davey Blackburn, says he has decided to forgive the three men charged in her death.
“What I realized was that forgiveness isn’t an emotion. I wasn’t ever going to feel like forgiving them,” Blackburn said. “Just point blank: You’re never going to feel like forgiving someone for doing something to you that’s irreparable.”
Blackburn added, “What I realized is that forgiveness is a decision. And it’s not just a one-time decision. It’s a daily decision. I have to wake up and I have to decide to forgive. And here’s why I decided to decide to forgive. It’s because bitterness and unforgiveness is going to be a cancer to no one else except for me. And it’s going to eat me up inside if I hold on to that.”
Blackburn, who helped found Resonate Church in Indianapolis in 2012, also said he hopes he can eventually share his faith with the three accused men.
Read more:
» Husband of slain Indianapolis wife says he will forgive accused killers » Memorial For Slain Indianapolis Woman Draws More Than 2K People
Mother Forgives Hit-and-Run Driver Who Killed Her 4-Year-Old Son
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, PA, USA – Four-year-old Abdul “Latif” Wilson was playing outside with his two brothers when he scampered between parked cars and into the road on April 13, 2015. A surveillance video caught grainy images of Shanika Mason, 28, hitting Latif with the rented Ford Edge she was driving, her own three children in the back seat. Mason apparently panicked and drove off before turning herself in the next day.
Mason, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 2-5 years in state prison for “letting panic overtake decency” that night. At Mason’s sentencing hearing, Latif’s mother Dominique Lockwood, 30, despite choking back sobs, was eloquent and dignified as she read the three-page statement she’d handwritten.
“I look at what now is my past merging into my future,” Lockwood said. “It’s a sharp pain that goes through my heart – the very heart my baby boy once listened to as he slept while I kept him safe, healthy and warm in my belly.”
Although she was in obvious pain, Lockwood didn’t talk out of anger. Instead, she talked about how she has found a new way to go on, for her own sake and for that of her surviving children, Samaj, 9, and Everett, 6.
“I can only live on by having faith that this very sharp pain that cuts deep down in my heart is just my intelligent baby boy letting me know he didn’t go anywhere,” she said. “I forgive you, Miss Mason, as hard as it is to say. I have to forgive you so that my own heart can be as pure as my baby’s so that I can be with him again one day.”
In memory of Latif, Lockwood has founded a nonprofit called Embracing God’s Angels. Its mission is to lend a hand to those who’ve lost loved ones suddenly – perhaps to help pay for a headstone or for a day of pampering in the aftermath of loss.
“It is hard. I cry every day for my child. But I have to keep moving forward in forgiveness and goodness,” Lockwood said.
Read the full story: In court, a day of sadness & forgiveness in hit-and-run
