Cultivating Compassion for Self and Others: A School‐Based Pilot Study for Peer‐Nominated Caring Adolescents

Many have called for school‐based student programs that teach skills related to self‐care and caring for others. Here, such a program for peer‐nominated adolescents was developed and piloted virtually at one high school during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Results of a longitudinal, quasi‐experimental evaluation of the program showed high‐quality program implementation and promising program impacts. Effect sizes indicated moderate to large program impacts on improvements in adolescents' self‐compassion, sense of interdependence, and perspective‐taking, and female adolescents' interoceptive awareness, compared to controls. No group differences in compassion for others were found. The need for more research on programs that help adolescents balance compassion for the self and for others is discussed.