View highlights from our hugely successful 2018 Conference that took place in London in June, where we invited leading figures to reflect on what the future holds and offer practical ‘next steps’ for those in educational or mental health contexts. Speakers included:
Jon Kabat-Zinn, founding father of the contemporary mindfulness movement, who lead a mindfulness practice and shared his hopes and fears about what the future holds for mindfulness and young people.
Rohan Gunatillake, creator of best-selling app ‘buddhify’ and pioneer in the growing world of digital mindfulness, proposed apps as the ideal way to connect young people with mindfulness.
Jessica Morey, Director of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme) explained how ‘retreats’ might be the place to really connect with children and teens.
Oren Ergas, in his book “Reconstructing Education through Mindful Attention” proposed a radical rethink of the way we educate, placing heart and mind at the very centre of how we teach all subjects.
Chris Ruane MP, the driving force of mindfulness amongst MPs and Peers in Westminster, explained his vision of how education policy might change to embrace the benefits of mindfulness.
Jamie Bristow, architect of Mindful Nation UK, the All-Party-Parliamentary Group report, explained how mindfulness is an essential tool for reclaiming young people’s freedom in today’s ‘attention economy’.
Cathie Paine, of REAch2, youngest headteacher in England when first appointed to a large and socially deprived school in “special measures”, presented the challenges facing academy chains who want to embed mindfulness.
Katherine Weare, author (with Thich Nhat Hanh) of ‘Happy Teachers Change The World’ and widely held as the UK’s custodian of academic research into mindfulness, told us which research findings are robust, which are just wishful thinking, and what we do with the results.
Niamh Bruce, the voice behind the highly-acclaimed .b animated practices, lead a short mindfulness practice, and young people spoke about why they think mindfulness is important in the future.
Richard Burnett, co-founder of Mindfulness in Schools Project, chaired the day.