CARE for Teachers: Fifth Annual Garrison Institute Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education Summer Retreat

August 10 - 15, 2012 at the Garrison Institute, 14 Mary's Way, Garrison, NY

For more information about this retreat, please contact the Contemplation & Education Program Assistant at education@garrisoninstitute.org or by calling 845-424-4800 ext. 134. To register for the event, please visit our website.

Open to all educators

A project of the Garrison Institute Initiative on Contemplation and Education

CARE Participants Teaching is one of the most rewarding professions; it can also be one of the most difficult. Growing demands-from the academic workload to working with students impacted by poverty, violence and divorce can add up to a highly stressful environment for teachers. Studies show that helping teachers cope with such stress effectively does more than reduce burnout: it allows them to be role models for healthy social and emotional behavior and improves educational outcomes for students.

The Garrison Institute's Initiative on Contemplation and Education offers this innovative training for teachers introducing an evidence-based set of practical skills. These skills will help you reduce stress, improve your mental concentration and emotional awareness and facilitate responsiveness. You will be able to apply these in the classroom so you can consistently be the caring, compassionate teacher you are. These skills include relaxation, movement, deep listening, emotion-awareness training, and much more.

CARE for Teachers has been developed by a team of researchers, educators, psychologists and experts in contemplative practice. This summer retreat will be conducted by Patricia Jennings, M.Ed., Ph.D., director of the Garrison Institute's Initiative on Contemplation and Education and Research Assistant Professor with the Prevention Research Center at Penn State University, Richard Brown, founder and chair of Naropa University's Contemplative Education Department, and Christa Turksma, psychologist and prevention consultant to Penn State University.

*Does not include room and board costs

The retreat offers 37 hours of training over five days. To register, click the link on the right-hand side of this page. Registration prices include all training sessions, on site housing, meals and the program fee. Partial registration is not available. Continuing Education Units (CEUs) will be available for an additional cost.

Optional programs

We will be offering two optional, supplemental programs following the CARE retreat, Wednesday, August 15th, 3pm to Thursday, August 16th, 3pm, with meals included.

• MindUP^TM, for K-8 teachers, is the signature educational initiative of Goldie Hawn's Hawn Foundation. It's a family of social, emotional and attentional self-regulatory strategies and skills that help children cultivate well-being and emotional balance and improve their behavior and learning. MindUPTM draws on current research in cognitive neuroscience, evidence-based classroom pedagogy, best-practices in mindful education, precepts of social and emotional learning (SEL) and guiding principles of positive psychology.
• Learning to BREATHE^TM, for 5th-12th grade teachers and counselors, is a secular mindfulness-based curriculum for youth and adolescents created for a classroom or group setting. The curriculum is intended to strengthen emotion regulation and attention, expand youth and adolescents' repertoire of stress management skills and help them integrate mindfulness into daily life.