Quality

Commitment

Introduction

Mindfulness has grown in popularity over recent years and the field has seen a large surge in the number of teachers, trainings and events available. With the absence of a globally recognised regulatory body and a large volume of complex guidance it can be difficult for the public and mindfulness teachers to make informed decisions on who to work with and which events to attend.

This directory service aims to inform the public by providing basic information on teacher and professional credentials as well as displaying information on a range of events to enable informed comparisons and support decision making.

Mindful Directory aims to compliment the services offered by other mindfulness organisations, for example we list events and trainings offered from many of the global training centres to reduce the level of searching required to find training courses, retreats, etc.

Quality Commitment

To support transparency, those registering to use the service will be required to declare their training or professional credentials. They will also be asked to adhere to an ethical code relevant to any professional body with which they are affiliated. If they do not have such a code, teachers registering are asked to pay attention and commit to codes set out by the most relevant professional body as a safeguard and to promote good practice (Baer, 2015).

Professionals who register with the Mindful Directory are placed into one of three membership categories:

  1. Teacher
  2. Associate Teacher
  3. Other Professional

1. Teacher

The term ‘Mindfulness teacher trained’ is difficult to define since there are a range of teacher training programmes available. For this category we have taken guidance from the Segal, Williams & Teasdale, 2013 Training Pathway which is based on the training guidelines in the Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy treatment manual as well as expert opinion and consensus, we have applied this across all different types of mindfulness.

To register in this category, teachers will be asked to provide details of their mindfulness teacher training and commitment to continuing professional development in this field, this information will be visible on the website for the public to support their decisions.

2. Associate Teacher

Associate Teachers have received some mindfulness teacher training however they have not yet completed a 12-month supervised training pathway. Many Associate Teachers have extensive teaching experience however for various reasons they have not completed a full training programme as detailed by the Segal, Williams & Teasdale, 2013 Training Pathway.

To register in this category, teachers will be asked to provide details of their teacher training and this information will be visible on the website for the public to support their decisions.

3. Other Professional Member

Professionals listed in this category have not received any formal mindfulness teacher training, they are professionals in their own field and are integrating some form of mindfulness into their work. Examples would be Mindful Coaching, Mindful Walking Groups, Mindful Yoga etc

To register in this category, professionals will be asked to provide details of their integration of mindfulness into their professional contexts and this information will be visible on the website for the public to support their decisions.

Teacher Attributes

In addition to viewing the professional details, there will be a facility to identify additional teacher attributes such as Mindfulness Supervisor Trained and Competency Assessed via the MBI:TAC (at ‘Competency’ level or above). We hope this will further support the public with event selection.

Types of Mindfulness / Mindfulness Interventions

There are a range of commonly accepted mindfulness programmes, below are some of the more common with links for further information.

One of the benefits of mindfulness is that it can be adapted to different population needs and therefore can be delivered in a wide range of settings. As a profession, mindfulness is still in its infancy and whilst there is general support for wider dissemination of mindfulness; adaptations to established programmes requires a level of caution and expertise.

Our vision is that mindfulness is accessible to all areas of society, we acknowledge this requires some adaptations to the more commonly accepted programmes (such as those listed above), and accept that in some cases mindful practices are being introduced to areas of society and to populations by professionals who have not undertaken a full 12 months training due to a range of prohibiting factors. Our aim is to provide clear comparable information on the professionals operating in this field and their training.

We will support the community by building a FAQ section based on frequent queries coming in from the public, please contact us to log queries and engage with the team.