Mindful Connections™ for
Educators & Classrooms
Mindful Connections™ for
Educators & Classrooms
This evidence-based program is designed and taught by teachers; for teachers, these courses help educators build stress-reducing skills to create space for mindfulness and meditation in their lives, then bring those skills to their classrooms.
Basic Info
When & Where
Online via Zoom or In-Person
10 sessions for Educators &
8 sessions for Classrooms, designed to fit your workplace scheduling needs
Designed For
- Educators who work with students ages K–12+
- Looking for a Pre-K educator program? Go to Early Childhood Professionals.
Course 1: Mindful Connections™ for Educators
About
Flexible and adaptable to your unique setting, this teacher training course introduces essential mindfulness practices that help strengthen social and emotional regulation and well-being. Our instructors, who are experienced educators themselves, will teach you skills to help you cope with daily stressors, be more resilient, nurture compassion and empathy, and develop a regular mindfulness practice.
In Mindful Connections™ for Educators, we dive into:
- A basic introduction to mindfulness
- The research that supports mindfulness
- Dealing with difficult emotions and events
- Working with stressful situations and environments
- Understanding and improving relationships
- Mindful communication
- Increasing joy through forgiveness and gratitude
Course 2: Mindful Connections™ for Classrooms
About
The goal of this program is to guide school staff in bringing meditation and mindfulness practices into their classrooms and work with students. Mindful Connections™ for Educators is a prerequisite.
We typically begin with a one-hour presentation to the parents and community about the program. For school staff, a 12-hour program will then be delivered to fit your professional
development calendar and could be offered in a variety of structures and formats.
In Mindful Connections™ for Classrooms, we teach you to:
- Embody and model mindfulness in the classroom and with colleagues
- Lead age-appropriate mindfulness practices with students
- Help students understand and identify their
- stress responses
- Nurture students’ positive self-talk and
- self-compassion
- Facilitate students’ natural capacity to give
- and receive love, empathy, and compassion
- Integrate a trauma-informed approach to delivering mindfulness to students
- Design mindfulness-based lesson plan objectives
Course 3: Mindful Connections™ for Trauma Sensitive Schools
About
More than two thirds of children report that they have at least 1 traumatic event by the age of 16. 1 in 7 children have experienced
abuse or neglect. (www.samhsa.gov). When students experience trauma they bring that with them to school. Untreated, it can prevent learning and lead to unproductive student behaviors. Teachers may come to schools with their own traumas, but are also often experiencing secondary or vicarious trauma, resulting from hearing about their students’ traumatic experiences.
MC4TSS teaches ways to hold space, provide support, and create a school that takes into consideration the fact that many in our school communities have experienced trauma in their lives and reduce potential harm. Participants will be provided a road map and context for a deeper nderstanding of the need for a trauma informed approach in all aspects of schools and how to create a school and classroom environment that is safer for all. MC4TSS can be offered prior to or after our MC4E program.
This course is offered as 8, 1.5 hour sessions that cover:
1. The 4 R’s to being trauma sensitive as an overview of what we’ll cover together:
- Realize the prevalence of trauma in our communities
- Recognize the symptoms of trauma in our students and ourselves
- Avoid Re-Traumatization
- Respond in supportive ways when you
identify a trauma response
2. What is trauma? How prevalent is it?
3. How does trauma show up at schools?
4. What is a trauma response? Body & brain
5. What can be done proactively to reduce the potential of harm?
6. How to bring a person experiencing a trauma response into the present moment
7. How to react to difficult student behaviors in a trauma sensitive way
Some of the organizations we’ve worked with include…
Testimonials
“The sessions were so informative and helped to keep the energy going with my own practice. The content was rich and relevant. It was very easy to make real life connections and not be made to feel that this practice was out of my reach.””
Participant
Environmental Charter School
“Thank you! Sometimes at the end of a school day we are tired, but you were wonderful facilitators at pulling it out.”
Participant
Woodland Hills School District