Higher education establishments we have worked with:
Socially Rooted Mindfulness in Education
As an ambitious CIC we are working hard to establish collaborations and connections with educators, lecturers, teachers, facilitators and programme leaders, willing to explore Mindfulness. We have provided rewarding Mindfulness workshops to Schools, Colleges and Higher Educational Institutions including Edinburgh University and Aberdeen University and other educational establishments over the years.
We are keen to continue to provide our socially prescribed mindfulness approaches within educational settings for both students and staff for educational and wellbeing purposes to support their learning, work and prosocial engagement across cultures.
Recognising Identity Based Harm Through Bespoke Programmes
Whilst we offer Mindfulness Based Inclusion Training for multicultural groups (that includes those racialised as white); we recognise that one size doesn’t necessarily fit all therefore we offer bespoke and context specific packages to suit differing needs.
Collaborations can offer some amazing and important equitable opportunities for some graduates of our MBIT Training and Social Enterprise Programme for those with lived experience of marginalisation. Particularly for those that identify as African, Caribbean, Asian, Culturally Indigenous or black, brown, people of colour; and more broadly for those that have lived experience of ethnic marginalisation. This is to provide culturally relevant mindfulness training in a way that also nurtures equity opportunities, in Mindfulness Based EDI Consultancy and culturally relevant mindfulness workshops and programmes that fit into the educational and other statutory systems.
Mindfulness-Based Inclusion Training for BAPOC
This programme is specifically created for Students and Staff that identify as Black, Asian and People of Colour (BAPOC) from indigenous lands and heritages. As the creators and current facilitators of MBIT have direct lived experience of being racially and ethnically marginalised within Western countries or westernised societies, this is something that we feel is important to share with participants for the programme’s authenticity, relatability, and integrity.
This programme is offered to African and Caribbean (Black), Asian and People of Colour and is focused on understanding through cultural learning and prioritising wellbeing and healing.
Mindfulness in Schools
We are also delighted to offer the Mindfulness in Schools Project .B (dot b) course for 11-18 year olds. These shorter sessions last between 40 and 60 minutes and are designed to be delivered in a school setting. We can also deliver the programme as part of a student enrichment programme, Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) programme or even after school club for up to 25 pupils per programme.
Importantly, we are also delighted to say that all our offerings for young people are structured and built upon and around the materials that we learnt to deliver in the MISP dot.b programme that provided a foundation for our work with young people.
Mindfulness in Higher Education such as Colleges and Universities
We deliver socially and culturally sensitive and informed Mindfulness-Based Inclusion Training (MBIT) workshops, programmes and modules as part of new or existing college and degree programmes, as well as wellbeing offerings. Through diverse modalities we share and invite perspectives and tools for students and staff to aid mindfulness becoming more available, relatable, and socially active, and for participants to become more critically aware in context.
Over the longer term we hope the Broader MBIT programme can be developed into an Educational Social Science Degree programme that offers another perspective on how mindfulness training might impact or be used to alleviate suffering related to some of the broader social issues such as equity, inequality, diversity, inclusion and belonging, as a process of teaching to transgress through anti oppression pedagogy.
If you are willing to explore MBIT or interested in learning to deliver MBIT, from the space of their own authentic lived experience of being marginalised, in whatever relational context, and particularly, in the context of the 9 protected characteristics and hate crime monitoring under UK Law.
So if you are working in higher education or an educational authority, and are interested in exploring social mindfulness further, please do contact us. We would enjoy exploring how our workshops, programmes and modules might offer your students and or staff interesting perspectives on collective wellbeing, empathy, compassion, solidarity building, Critical thinking, multi-perspectivism and scientific integrity.
Including Diversity in Education
The inclusion agenda has broadened from pupils with Special Educational Needs (SEN) to those with the full range of barriers to learning, including:
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- Mental health challenges
- Race and cultural challenges
- Gender identity challenges
- Class challenges
- Neuro divergent challenges
- LGBTQIA+ challenges
- and more
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Consequently, the Urban Mindfulness Foundation have developed PSHE lessons covering a wide range of equality, diversity and inclusion topics for people of all ages. By working in close collaboration with educational institutions, educators, and teachers, we nurture an awareness of JEDI work to cultivate an inclusive mind set that will be required for our collective human flourishing in tomorrows world.
We also deliver mindfulness based teacher trainings that include the following topics:
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- An introduction to JEDI work
- Compassionate inclusion, enquiry and bias awareness training
- Creating an inclusive culture
- How to safely decolonise a curriculum
- Stress management using positive psychology and mindfulness
- Cultural competence training
- Embedding diverse and inclusive practice in education/ schools
- Safeguarding that avoids stereotyping and profiling
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bell hooks – Teaching to Transgress in Higher Education
We take great inspiration from the late and great bell hooks . Here is a recording of her in conversation
Prioritising Equity
Proceeds from of our services to Higher Education Institutions are directed towards ensuring the ongoing provision of Free context-specific and culturally aware mindfulness training particularly for those from disadvantaged, underserved and marginalised communities who would not normally be able to access mindfulness training due to relatability or costs.