“I am writing in support of the work of Dr. Jim Boggs and the EffectiveArts program. For the past six years, Dr. Boggs and his team of actors have provided an invaluable service to Seattle Shanti, helping us to prepare volunteers to provide one-to-one emotional support to people with life-threatening illnesses.

It is essential to the success of our community-based agency that we provide our volunteers with an intensive training that prepares them to engage in emotionally-charged situations with their clients. An invaluable part of our 30-hour training is a series of interactive dramas utilizing the skills of Dr. Boggs and his associates. EffectiveArts actors construct characters and scenarios that fit Shanti's standards and needs, creating scenes that - while in progress -- are often indistinguishable from the real-life situations our volunteers encounter.

In playing the parts of hypothetical Shanti clients, the actors engage with trainees in deep and intense interactive dramas, facilitating profound levels of experiential learning. The construct of each scenario presents situations that enable our trainees to make mistakes in a controlled setting, to learn from those mistakes, and thereby to improve their effectiveness in the work they will do with clients.

At the conclusion of each scenario, EffectiveArts actors provide useful, in-depth feedback based on what their characters experienced, helping trainees become aware and confident as they prepare to engage in real-life situations with clients.

The staff of Seattle Shanti is grateful for the contribution Dr. Boggs and his associates have made to the effectiveness of our community-service program. We would highly recommend EffectiveArts to any agency or corporation that seeks to improve the effectiveness of its staff and the quality of its services.”