What Is Epistemic Trust?

Epistemic (the Greek word for knowledge or the roots of knowledge) Trust refers to the specific kind of trust required by someone to allow learning (particularly social learning, about "how we behave in these circumstances") to take place by one person from another person.

In other words "you trust and learn from the person who gets you".

Epistemic Trust is built on (or triggered by) the knowledge that someone has authentically connected and sympathetically understood the crucial things about me - not about people in general, but about me in particular: the sense that "you have noticed and understood what it is like to be me, here, now, in THIS predicament."

Why is Epistemic Trust Important?

When you're working with a family, its really important to identify who it is that they trust, that they believe 'gets them'. It will take time for you to earn the trust of the child, young person or parent. But in order for them to feel safe in the work, its vital you know who they trust, and that person is visible and present for them in the scaffolding network you are building.

Using mentalizing is also a really important way for you to build epistemic trust with the child, young person, parent or carer - that you have noticed, cared, understood and articulated what it is like to 'be me'.

E-Learning

You can find more about Epistemic Trust on the Resilient Families E-Learning, available on the L and D portal