The UK is to get its first ever training course for those who teach mindfulness in the workplace.
The Mindfulness Exchange (TME) is providing the course for workplace mindfulness trainers in Feb 2015.
This follows the Search Insider Yourself (SIY) Programme, which grew from mindfulness at Google and the Potential Project (PP) which is based in Denmark.
Unlike both SIY and PP, TME training grows out of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). TME courses use the bestselling self-help book, Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Professor Mark Williams (one of the co-developers of MBCT) and Dr Danny Penman as a resource book. This book offers a “reduced dose” MBCT for the stress of modern living.
TME provide a “reduced dose” MBCT adapting the delivery of mindfulness as a therapy to a workplace training format.
The length of standard courses (eight weeks), the time commitment to classes (two or two and a half hours), time required to engage in formal mindfulness meditation between classes (45mind to an hour) and the teaching style makes standard mindfulness courses unsuitable for a workplace.
The offering of standard format mindfulness courses is likely to be the reason for slow uptake of mindfulness in the workplace.
TME courses reduce the length of classes to one, or one and a half hours over six or four weeks. TME courses require approximately 25% of time commitment of the standard courses and early results indicate that they may even be as effective as standard programmes. No other organisation is offering trainer training to deliver courses to the workplace that are built for the purpose and rely scientific work into the benefits of mindfulness.
