Using Mindfulness to Promote Mental Health in Schools

Using Mindfulness to Promote Mental Health in Schools provides scholarly and practical information about using mindfulness-based practices to promote mental health in schools. Mindfulness is understood as a key psychological skill set, which can be taught and learned like any other skill, by mental health professionals, educators, and others who are working in schools. Chapters focus on how practices related to training mindfulness skills can be integrated within a multitiered approach to school-based mental health service delivery, including universal, targeted, and intensive supports. Examples are provided regarding how mindfulness-based practices can be applied at the classroom and schoolwide level for promoting the well-being of all students, at the small-group level for supporting students with emerging psychosocial risk, and at the individualized level for intervening with students experiencing chronic or severe mental health concerns. Authored by leading scholars in the field, the book provides a brief and accessible introduction to help implementers understand, select, apply, and evaluate mindfulness-based practices in schools. The text is divided into two sections. The first section discusses the conceptual and historical foundations of mindfulness-based practices in schools and mindfulness-based assessment practices with youth and their caregivers that are relevant for use in schools, while the second section covers various approaches to mindfulness-based interventions with youth and their caregivers, including chapters on mindfulness-based stress reduction, mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, mindful yoga, and mindfulness-based parent training.