Come and practise an important interaction skill – listening. When you need open and honest communication and effective negotiation skills, listening helps. Listening helps to create a safe and stimulating atmosphere for discussion, teaching, care and important interactions in your own life. It can help other people and be a way to show appreciation for them by being present. Listening paves the way for empathy!

The training focuses on active listening and learning how to avoid stumbling blocks in interaction. The workshop is organised by the University of Jyväskylä’s interdisciplinary research area Behaviour change, health, and well-being across the lifespan (BC-Well).

• Pirkko Lahti

  Pirkko Lahti, psychologist and Licentiate of Philosophy, will act as the workshop’s expert. She is known for her decades of work as the Executive Director of the Finnish Mental Health Association. She was an active advocate for mental wellbeing at a time when openness on these issues was rare.

  “Conversation is the ability to listen, to comment, to interrupt appropriately and to inspire.”

• Taru Lintunen

  Professor emerita Taru Lintunen from the University of Jyväskylä specialises in research on teaching and learning of emotional and interaction skills and the development of education in the field.

  “Listening prevents and resolves conflicts.”

  Photo by Petteri Kivimäki

• Markus Talvio

  Markus Talvio is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Helsinki. He has taught emotional and interpersonal skills to hundreds of teachers, parents and managers in more than ten countries and has researched their benefits. He is co-author of the textbook “Toimiva vuorovaikutus”.

  “Getting along with people is not an innate trait, it is a skill that can be taught and learned.”

• Hanna-Mari Toivonen

  Hanna-Mari Toivonen is a professor of sport psychology at the University of Jyväskylä. She teaches and researches emotional and interaction skills, group phenomena and sense of responsibility in sport.

• Laura Otsala

  Laura Otsala is a university lecturer in health promotion at the University of Jyväskylä. She is interested in teaching emotional and interpersonal skills, especially from the perspective of promoting mental health in children and adolescents.

• Tommi Mäkinen

  University teacher Tommi Mäkinen teaches and researches emotional and interpersonal skills at the University of Jyväskylä and has trained parents, teachers and other professionals in the field of humanity.