MINDFUL CONNECTIONS FOR EDUCATORS AND CLASSROOMS
Mindful Connections™ for educators
Mindful Connections for Educators is a 20-hour program designed especially for educators. This flexible teacher training course adapts to your unique setting and schedule and introduces essential mindfulness practices to strengthen social and emotional regulation and well-being.
Our instructors are educators themselves. They’ll teach you the skills you need to create a space for mindfulness and meditation in your own life.
You will learn how to:
- Cope with daily stressors
- Be more resilient
- Increase compassion and empathy
- Develop a regular mindfulness practice
The course includes the following topics:
- Basic introduction to mindfulness
- The research that supports mindfulness
- Dealing with difficult emotions and events
- Understanding and improving relationships
- Mindful communication
- Conflict resolution
- Forgiveness and gratitude
Mindful Connections™ for classrooms
Mindful Connections for Classrooms is an evidence-based program unique to Awaken Pittsburgh. Its goal is to guide school staff in bringing meditation and mindfulness practices into their professional educational praxis after they have introduced it into their own lives through Mindful Connections™ for Educators.
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.
You will learn how to:
- Embody and model 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
upcoming courses
Exploring the Tree of Contemplative Practices series
Join us on Saturday, December 3rd, from 10:00 AM – Noon as we engage with the “Relational” branch, through an interactive workshop on Contemplative Storytelling, led by Britt Dorazio.
This is a hybrid event. Please join us in-person at the Squirrel Hill JCC, or on zoom.
Learn more about the Tree of Contemplative Practices Series here.
We hope to see you there!
In-person and on-line Guided Mindfulness Meditation
Awaken Pittsburgh is offering three monthly guided meditations open to anyone! This is a chance to practice in community together.
Each session follows the same format: introductions, a period of guided meditation, and then a chance to support one another, discuss how our meditations are going at home, and ask any questions we have about practice.
Pre-registration, via the links provided, help us to prepare and ensure that we have room for everyone.
Our schedule is as follows :
1st Tuesday of each month, 1:00 – 2:00 PM – South Hills JCC
2nd Saturday of each month, 8:30-9:30 AM – Squirrel Hill JCC
3rd Monday of each month, 7:00 – 8:00 PM – Squirrel Hill JCC
Our in-person venue requires that you are fully vaccinated to enter. Please arrive early with your vaccination card to register on your way in.
There is no charge for attending, but donations to support our work are appreciated.
We hope to see you there!
Some of the organizations we’ve worked with include…
“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, Mindful Connections for Educators
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, Mindful Connections for Educators
Woodland Hills School District