Mindfulness – What is it, how might it help children, teachers and schools?

07/11/22 • 30 min

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In this second podcast with Professor Willem Kuyken, we explore mindfulness - what it is, how it can be practised and how it can benefit mental health. We debunk the idea of mindfulness as a panacea and explore instead for whom and under what conditions it might be helpful. We consider the many facets of mindfulness such as curiosity, kindness and compassion and how we learn mindfulness through our everyday lives and other people. We discuss how our attention has become a commodity that social media successfully harnesses and that perhaps mindfulness is a way to claim back our attention. Finally we start to think about the best ways to introduce mindfulness in schools, revisiting the idea of school climate.

If you want to hear more about codesign do listen to the RE-STAR podcasts

If you want to hear more about codesign do listen to the RE-STAR podcasts

Previous Episode

Mental Health In Schools with Prof. Willem Kuyken

This is the first of 3 podcasts with Professor Willem Kuyken in which we discuss mental health in schools culminating in an episode about the Myriad Trial (My Resilience in Adolescence) which looked at the impact of a brief Mindfulness intervention on the wellbeing of young teens. In this episode we start with a broad discussion around mental health in young people, the role schools have in supporting mental health, why mental health and wellbeing interventions should be evidence based, what ‘evidence based’ actually means and, the challenges of delivering universal interventions. We begin a discussion of school climate and how this may be central if we’re to take a fresh and evidence-based approach to mental health in schools.

Willem references Casel in our discussion - here is the link should you wish to find out more. Another couple of useful links are Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Centre and the EEF Toolkit

Next Episode

Does Mindfulness work as a Universal Intervention for Young Teens in Schools? The Results of the MYRIAD Trial.

This is the third and final episode with Professor Willem Kuyken. Over the last two episodes we have discussed the national picture of mental health in young people, the role of schools in providing mental health and wellbeing education to young people, what mindfulness is and how it might help people with their mental health. In this episode we discuss the findings of the Myriad Trial (My Resilience in Adolescence) a large, randomised control trial funded by the Wellcome which looked at the impact of a brief Mindfulness intervention on the wellbeing of young teens. Willem was one of four principal investigators (with Mark Williams, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Tim Dalgleish) on this trial and as you will hear, the findings challenge us to think afresh about how best to support young people, teachers, parents and policy makers in addressing the challenges of ensuring mental health in young people.

You can find more about the Myriad project here. If you would like to read the papers they are open source and available here. There is also a film you can watch here made with a group of young people from schools that took part in the trial, that provides their perspective on mental health and the role of schools.

Links mentioned in the episode were Casel and Penn State University