Schoolwide Implementation Program

Our Core Objectives

• To offer high-quality instruction and personal guidance that creates the conditions for educators of all backgrounds to develop leadership qualities and become experts in schoolwide implementation.
• To provide practical training and transformational experiences that make it possible for educators to skillfully embody, adapt, and share mindfulness practices across a variety of educational settings.
• To enable meaningful connection and support from the vibrant Mindful Schools community and to empower educators as agents for positive change within the growing mindfulness in education movement.

Our Approach

The Schoolwide Implementation Program integrates three core skills that support educators to effectively adapt and deliver mindfulness programs to a number of contexts. 

1. Mindfulness Practice. Deepening your personal mindfulness practice allows you to cultivate self-awareness and resilience. Learning how to integrate your mindfulness practice while in the midst of leading change is a powerful skill. 
2. Design Principles. Cultivating design principles for leading change supports you in moving from being a teacher of mindfulness to that of an expert designer who can develop a multi-year mindfulness program in an educational institution.  
3. Implementation Strategies. Developing the professional skills to effectively implement a nimble and responsive multi-year implementation plan provides a powerful foundation for your work in schoolwide implementation.  

Outcomes

This program will empower you to become a leader and expert on implementing mindfulness programs across a variety of school settings. Specifically, you will be qualified to:

• Design school- and district-wide implementation of mindfulness program plans, implement those plans
• Use various rubrics to evaluate schools, districts, and other educational settings to determine where they are on the path to becoming Mindful Schools (or educational settings) and provide guidance for the best next steps the organization can take on the journey.
• Use the Mindful Schools curriculum to create and adapt a mindfulness program to the needs of a specific school setting or content area (e.g. ongoing classroom instruction, science, health, PE, philosophy, supporting sports teams, etc.) and incorporate mindfulness instruction into other types of instruction or classroom routines (e.g. test-taking, counseling, circle time, advisory/homeroom, etc.).
• Support efforts to design a mindfulness program for school communities or similar institutions, and in general, support teachers and administrators in their work to establish or grow a mindfulness program.
• Lead professional development sessions related to the field of mindfulness in education, the benefits of teaching mindfulness to youth, and the benefits of youth caregivers having a personal mindfulness practice.
• Teach adults how to practice mindfulness by offering introductory and beginner-level mindfulness classes. You can also offer mindfulness practice to groups of teachers, administrators, parents, or other interested adults in the school community or institution.

This program will not qualify you to:

• Teach or certify other teachers to teach mindfulness
• Represent yourself as an employee of Mindful Schools or teach Mindful Schools courses (e.g. 101: Mindfulness Foundations, 201: Mindfulness in the Classroom)
• Offer advanced personal practice support or multi-day/residential practice-intensive retreats for adults
• Provide mindfulness-based therapeutic interventions (e.g. mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, dialectical behavior therapy, trauma therapy, etc.)

How does this program differ from the Mindful Teacher Certification Program?

While the Mindful Teacher Certification Program (MTCP) focuses on supporting participants’ development as a Mindful Teacher and the application of teaching mindfulness in the classroom, our Schoolwide Implementation Program (SWIP) focuses on supporting participants’ development as an expert of Schoolwide Implementation, with a focus on developing capacities to take mindfulness to scale across a variety of school or district contexts.

Program Leadership

Our faculty’s expertise offers many decades of schoolwide implementation experience, professional development creation, mindfulness teaching experience, as well as a wide variety of backgrounds and interests such as self-care and compassion, stress and resilience, the body and movement, neuroscience and the brain, trauma and special needs, curriculum and lesson design, classroom applications, and more.

Immersive Retreats

In our blended learning model, the year-long program begins and ends with extended retreat experiences. Retreats offer a uniquely rich and immersive practice experience that supports growth and development in two ways:

• Mindfulness Practice Guided by Experienced Teachers: Each retreat begins with silent and guided mindfulness practice, which serves as the foundation of our teaching work and embodied presence.
• Professional Skills Development in Community: The second half of the retreat offers an opportunity to develop your teaching skills and benefit from the tremendous expertise and experience of the community. This includes body movement, group discussions, and fun activities, as well as unstructured time for networking and collaboration.

Remote Learning

In between the two retreats there is an intensive 10-month training program. Participants can expect to spend 3-5 hours each week involved in the following activities:

• Online Content: Instructional videos, readings, reflection assignments, and implementation activities to complete in your educational setting.
• LIVE Group Calls: Engaging discussions, lectures, guided sits, and Q&A formats via Zoom video calls. (Most live calls will be recorded for later viewing.)
• Cohort Group: Participants are grouped into small Cohort Groups that are led by a Guiding Teacher. Groups stay connected, share assignments and receive implementation feedback through monthly one-hour live video calls and online discussions.
• Affinity Groups: Optional affinity groups allow participants to gather around aspects of their identity, to offer and receive support, and to continue to grow and support the growth of others. 
• Daily Sitting: Participants are asked to maintain a personal mindfulness practice of at least 20 minutes per day.
• Expert-led Workshops and Talks: Engaging live talks and webinar-style workshops with our faculty of contributing teachers who are leaders in the mindfulness and education movement.
• Implementation Lab: Participants will design a multi-year implementation plan for their school or context, share that plan with their cohort members in order to get feedback from their cohort, and share feedback with their cohort members.
• Additional Learning Experiences: There will be additional opportunities for practice, including teacher office hours, reading groups, sitting groups, and regional meet-up groups where possible.

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