6 strategies for program implementation success

Other schools or districts that would like to implement a similar mindfulness program should consider these six factors that have helped Baldwin’s CHILL Project succeed:

Partner with regional health care experts. Baldwin is grateful for the opportunity to work with Davies and his fellow therapists. Combining their health care expertise with the lived experience of our students and staff has helped us provide targeted programming that addresses the specific mindfulness needs at Baldwin.
Make your services available to the entire school community. Stress reduction and self-care are increasingly popular among young people, but some students or staff may still be averse to accessing mental health services for fear that those services are only for individuals with diagnosed medical needs. But stress reduction benefits everyone, so by making these services available to your entire student body and/or staff, you help remove the stigma that often prevents people from seeking the help they need.
Involve your students from the start. When students have an active hand in developing new services, they’re more likely to talk about them with their friends and help build anticipation for them. Consider ways that the artists, athletes, journalists, musicians, performers and other student groups in your school can be part of the design and implementation of your mindfulness programs.
Make sure credentialed staff are available to help students on a flexible schedule. We’re fortunate to have therapists from Allegheny Health Network. Offering a discreet option for scheduling an appointment, such as via QR code, text or email, can help students feel more comfortable seeking private help for their specific concerns.
Build awareness. There’s a fine line between making a service available and making people use it. The former may not be enough by itself, while the latter will almost certainly backfire. Why make stress reduction more stressful? To maximize awareness of your school’s mindfulness resources, consider scheduling "tour time" for interested students or individual classes, when students and teachers can be introduced to these resources and invited to return whenever they’d like.
Provide teacher training on mindfulness practices for classroom use. To ensure that mindfulness isn’t seen as something that only takes place in a specific context, offer professional training and in-class resources for teachers who want to incorporate stress-reduction techniques as a regular part of their class time. After all, teachers can often recognize escalating stress levels even before the students themselves can articulate an increase. By enabling teachers to help mitigate these situations through mindfulness practice, you’ll ensure that stress reduction is a tool that your teachers and students can access in the moment, no matter where they are.

Randal A. Lutz is superintendent of the Baldwin-Whitehall School District in Pittsburgh.

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