I started to trust everyone in the class—I felt heard and I felt that people wanted to listen. As a result, I wasn’t afraid to let my past come out and let people learn from what I have been through.

As a pharmacy major, I do not receive much training on how to handle difficult or controversial conversations. I think that this training will help me not only in my duties as a resident assistant, but in discussing medications and therapies with future patients when the conversation becomes difficult.

Using what we learned from Essential Partners, staff were able to model effective and respectful communication for students. A next step would be for us to help students employ some of these methods themselves. The staff not only gained skills in communication but also left feeling supported by each other in the work that we do.