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It is important to consider how parents and the broader school community can be regularly informed about the school’s approach to mindfulness and to seek their ongoing involvement in the implementation of the school’s strategies, both at school and at home.
Examples on how other schools have chosen to include families and the broader community into the school’s approach to mindfulness:
Being vocal within the school and community on how mindfulness is impacting your school.
Share wellbeing outcomes in different community engagement materials and school events.
Evaluation outcomes can be shared: In newsletters, annual reports, on parent nights and in community engagement materials and events.
Offer school community mindfulness and meditation workshops.
Engage school community through mindfulness workshops that teach parents about techniques young people are learning with an intention to also provide benefit to parents and caregivers.
Presentations can be offered by MMA and other specialist training organisations. Schools might consider running their own workshops and wellbeing events.
Provide parents with home practice information and recommendations.
Schools can develop materials that explain what student mindfulness initiatives are being developed in the school and provided instructions for at home practice. Students can be encouraged to support their parents with learning techniques.
Information about evidence based mindfulness interventions should be made available to families with an explanation of what's going on in the school. Schools might provide links to recorded mindfulness activities or instruct young people to lead mindfulness and meditations in times of stress or before sleep.
Add mindfulness tips to ongoing newsletters and promotional communications.
Choose simple and clear mindfulness tips that can be used in ongoing publications to support your schools initiative.
Organise a mindfulness and meditation session for parents and students to attend together.
Sessions can be organised for parent nights or as part of wellbeing initiatives running in the school.
Have an external facilitator or someone in the school run through evidence on why mindfulness and meditation help and some mindfulness and meditation activities.
Share the school's approach to mindfulness with other local organisation and learn from their approaches
Extend the school's existing networks with the local community to share the benefits of mindfulness with other groups
Using the school's existing local networks explore ways in which students can encourage others in the community to implement mindfulness. This may be with a local day care centre, retirement village or local businesses.
Extend student and parent learning by creating homework or at home learning tasks between students and parents relating to mindfulness and meditation
By asking parents to complete an at-home activity with their child, both are learning about the science behind mindfulness and the way in which it can be embedded in to every day life.