Presenter: Lauren Macek, Psychology, Global Public Health Scholars
For the past seven months I had the opportunity to work with Evolving Minds. Evolving Minds is a nonprofit organization who’s practices center around community, connection, and care. Its goal is to spread awareness for mental health and build a “culture of CARE” (Community, Advocacy, Resilience, Empowerment) by using learned resilience and mindfulness skills. Some of these skills include sharing gratitude and the mindful pause. Evolving Minds works to train students and professionals to implement these mindfulness skills within their communities. By doing so, the “culture of CARE” becomes more prevalent and the community becomes resilient. My role with Evolving Minds is a Mindful Peer Educator and to build a “culture of CARE” in my community. During the first month of my practicum, I learned four mindfulness skills: sharing gratitude, remembering joy, the mindful pause, and recognizing goodness. After I finished this portion of the training, I was responsible for teaching these skills to others in my community. I would video chat three members of my community and we practiced these skills together. Also, I helped fundraise for the “Rooted in Resilience” campaign, which funds Mindful Peer Training for educators. Both of my tasks focused on strengthening community and human connection.
How do you think you can provide these services to low resource groups that arguably need this kind of mental health aid more than the demographic Evolving Minds is currently targeting?
What is something Evolving minds taught you that you think is extremely important to know about mental health?
I really like that you chose Evolving Minds for your practicum project. I was never aware of how bad this country's mental health is until the pandemic. The work that you are doing with Evolving Minds sounds very inspirational to the communities which you all come in contact with. I am glad that you get to have this experience since you want to work in the psychology field when you graduate.
I love your project and your poster is very thorough and organized! The work that you have done with Evolving Minds is very admirable! You mentioned that the focus of the organization is largely on youth populations, but since you reported 46% of educators to be experiencing high levels of stress, do you think there are resilience initiatives which could be implemented to help both students and educators?