Youth Voice is crucial for the Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP); children and young people are our ultimate beneficiaries. Hearing from them, ensuring mindfulness in schools work is tailored to their needs, and empowering them to be agents in the change taking place in their settings are all important.
Thanks to the ongoing Pathways development work, and funds raised, we are thrilled to be increasing MiSP’s capacity to highlight and support children and young people’s voices and proactive roles in our work.
Our Head of Education and Training, Ben Chalwin, explains that our Youth Voice work currently breaks down into two main areas:
1. Ensuring we hear from young people within the settings we teach mindfulness in
Our experience of teaching children and young people tells us that they really appreciate the space to express themselves within mindfulness sessions. This can be built upon by encouraging and inviting young people to engage in the world around them (including their learning and their school setting), empowering them to be agents of change. Listening to and valuing student voice within our own classrooms or schools can help us to adapt the mindfulness programmes we deliver to meet the needs of our learners. This flexibility of approach can be incorporated into other elements of the curriculum and the school day. This in turn can impact positively on the culture of the school.
2. Developing further the current Ambassador programme and other ways for children and young people themselves to contribute directly to mindfulness in schools and MiSP’s work
This enables MiSP as a charity to better hear from children and young people, our beneficiaries, about their experience of learning mindfulness and how it supports them in their lives. We are delighted that Emily Brierly has begun supporting MiSP’s development work in this area for 1-2 days per month, in a freelance capacity, using her experience of being on the MiSP Ambassador programme and lived experience of how mindfulness has helped her to support the coordination and content ideas for this aspect of the Youth Voice work.
Read more from the perspective of Emily Brierley, MiSP’s Youth Co-ordinator