Relationships are the foundation of social work librarianship practice. Social work recognizes the importance of healthy rapport building and it has always utilized it as a guide to communicate, interact and engage with people dealing with complex problems. Librarians have strong relationships with individuals, but they may not understand how powerful the impact of these relationships are when working with patrons struggling to manage psychosocial issues such as: poverty, homelessness, food insecurities, substance abuse, and mental illness. In this webinar ALA Doctoral Spectrum Fellow Shannon Crooks will provide attendees with an overview of the importance and impact of healthy rapport building with library users. Rapport building competencies will be identified and discussed in detail throughout the presentation. Participants will leave the training with strategies for building positive relationships with library users to help manage conflict, develop critical thinking approaches to solve problems and ways to collaborate with library users.

This webinar will be recorded for later viewing by those unable to attend live; to receive the recording link, please register and it will be automatically sent to you. If you have any questions or suggestions, please reach out to Tor Loney at tor.loney@nysed.gov