Credibility in mindfulness training for young people

Abstract

Providing the evidence-base to establish whether mindfulness for young people is beneficial is undoubtedly more challenging than it has been for adults. First of all there are the practical difficulties in training teachers to deliver mindfulness well. Yet this is what needs to be done; teachers with the class managment and pedagogical expertise are best placed to deliver mindfulness training to students with whom they have built trust. Secondly, it is difficult to measure the outcomes, particularly for teenagers, because unlike the positively predisposed adult participants ofMindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) training, adolescents, particularly if drafted into research at school, are less likely to focus on gaining understanding of the techniques, let alone actually practise them. Thirdly, a Whole-School drive and parental involvement, to promote mindfulness practice, may seem necessary to get students to spend enough time mindfully to see measurable benefits, but may actually have counterproductive effects. Students, parents and even teachers can react badly to such initiatives from leadership, which means any null results from formal studies may not be valid. The upshot of this is that clear evidence may be some time away. In the meantime the low risk of adverse reactions to mindfulness needs to be mitigated through the use of guidelines and training for educators. In search of solutions to the challenges to research validity, randomised controlled trials using teachers (not researchers) who have training and credibility to deliver mindfulness training, will paint a clearer picture of its effectiveness for young people.