Teaching is often hailed as a fulfilling vocation, yet the reality for many educators involves significant stress. The CARE (Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education) program is uniquely designed to address this challenge. It provides teachers, administrators, and educators with effective strategies to reduce stress and invigorate their teaching. CARE focuses on nurturing inner resources such as awareness, presence, compassion, reflection, and inspiration, which are crucial for educators to foster students’ social, emotional, and academic growth.
Neuroscience research supports the principles of CARE, demonstrating that mindfulness practices cultivate awareness and self-regulation. This leads to a calmer, more focused mind, characterized by openness, responsiveness, and sensitivity – qualities essential for optimal teaching and effective guidance in learning environments. These inner strengths empowered by the CARE program enable educators to be fully present and emotionally responsive, transforming them into impactful guides and positive role models for healthy social and emotional behavior.
Program Design and Delivery of the CARE Initiative
Rooted in contemporary neuroscience of emotion research, the CARE program incorporates emotion skills training to enhance the understanding, recognition, and regulation of emotions. To mitigate stress and cultivate both awareness and presence in teaching practices, CARE introduces fundamental mindfulness exercises. Starting with brief periods of quiet reflection, the program advances to activities that illustrate how mindfulness can be applied to challenging scenarios frequently encountered by educators. Through these practices, teachers learn to foster greater calmness, mindfulness, and awareness within the classroom, which enriches their relationships with students, improves classroom management, and enhances curriculum delivery. Furthermore, the CARE program nurtures empathy and compassion through activities focused on caring practice and mindful listening.
Recognizing diverse needs within educational settings, a specialized version of CARE has been developed to support the personal and leadership growth of principals, assistant principals, and other school administrators. The CARE program has also been successfully implemented with faculty in higher education to refine their awareness and presence in their teaching roles.
The CARE program offers flexible delivery formats to suit various contexts. The annual retreat at the Garrison Institute provides an immersive four-day experience. CARE is also delivered as a series of day-long sessions spread over several months, with ongoing online support to assist teachers in practicing and applying newly acquired skills between sessions.
“As a teacher educator, I learned and re-learned vital knowledge, skills and attitudes for fostering social, emotional and academic learning in my graduate students, and through them to K-12 student in schools and other learning communities.”
The program integrates didactic instruction with experiential activities, including dedicated time for reflection and group discussions. Educators who have participated in the CARE program frequently describe it as a relaxing, enjoyable, and deeply inspiring experience. Several educators share their personal experiences with the program in this video. The CARE Program has positively impacted educators across the globe, including in the US, Canada, The Netherlands, China, Croatia, and Germany. All CARE program training is facilitated by CREATE for Education.
Research Validating the CARE Program’s Effectiveness
In an era marked by heightened stress and burnout among educators, school districts are actively seeking evidence-based strategies to support their teaching staff. The CARE professional development program is emerging as a demonstrably effective solution. A series of rigorous, federally funded studies has investigated the impact of CARE on teacher well-being, classroom dynamics, and student outcomes. The findings from this research have been published in numerous peer-reviewed academic journals. Consistently, studies have shown that teachers participating in CARE experience significant improvements in well-being and reduced stress levels compared to control groups. Detailed research findings are available at https://createforeducation.org/care/care-research/.
A notable large-scale cluster randomized controlled trial, funded by the U.S. Department of Education in New York City, involved 224 teachers and over 5,000 students. This study corroborated previous findings of teacher improvement and further revealed that CARE enhances crucial aspects of the classroom environment. Trained researchers, unaware of the study’s objectives and teacher assignments, observed and coded classrooms. Compared to control classrooms, CARE classrooms exhibited more emotionally positive atmospheres, and teachers demonstrated greater sensitivity to student needs. Moreover, CARE classrooms showed higher levels of productivity. A subsequent follow-up report indicated that CARE teachers sustained significant reductions in psychological distress and ache-related physical distress, alongside notable improvements in emotion regulation and certain aspects of mindfulness. Findings suggest that teachers who participated in CARE reported both lasting and new benefits to their well-being in assessments conducted almost one year after the intervention.
These research outcomes are particularly significant for several key reasons. Firstly, the consistent positive results across multiple CARE studies provide compelling evidence that CARE is an effective professional development program for alleviating occupational stress and promoting teacher well-being. Secondly, the NYC study stands as the largest and most rigorous investigation into a mindfulness-based professional development program for teachers, and it is the first to examine the intervention’s effects on both classroom and student outcomes. Thirdly, the NYC study’s findings highlighting impacts on classroom dynamics are crucial as they demonstrate a significant link between teacher well-being and the quality of the classroom environment. Finally, this study serves as a “proof of concept,” illustrating that a mindfulness-based intervention can positively influence both individuals and their professional settings. Tish Jennings further discusses study findings and their implications in this video.
