"The best way to capture moments is to pay attention.
This is how we cultivate mindfulness."
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Join us for mindfulness classes for Middle or High School students or yoga classes for students AND adults. All programs take place at the beautiful
Castle View Farm.
OUTDOOR MINDFULNESS PROGRAM
The current global health and economic crisis presents our youth with significant new stressors including increased social isolation, fears of exposure to illness, changes in delivery of educational instruction, separation from supportive teachers and school counselors as well as economic hardships. Non-Traditional Instruction programming involves
significant increases in sedentary screen-time for students.
School-based mindfulness programs have been studied in youth and found to improve psychological well-being and reduce the negative impact of stress.
THE COURSES
Mindful
Horse-grooming
Mindful Walking
(near a small apple orchard)
Mindful Communication
Mindful Eating
(fresh farm produce)
Mindful Movement
(goat yoga)
Visualization Exercises
These extracurricular courses will teach mindfulness skills to students during 60-minute outdoor sessions. Our curriculum has been adapted from Dr. Amy Saltzman’s A Still Quiet Place mindfulness program for youth.
Course skills may include mindfulness practices of :
ABOUT
Dr. Kristin Dawson is a double-board certified psychiatrist in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry and General Psychiatry and is the Director of Mental Health at Wild Health. She is also the mom to four amazing kids and pretty fond of spending time in nature. Dr. Dawson developed some wild ideas for improving the mental health of youth during the pandemic and soon the Wild Minds program was born!
Wild Minds believes that a connection to nature can facilitate healing, can optimize mental health and enrich lives. We design mindfulness-based experiences for individuals and communities to experience wild-healing and wild-growth. Wild Minds also advances nature therapy principles through educational efforts and developing outdoor mindfulness resources. Connect with us and let us know if you would like to receive updates through our Wild Minds Newsletter.
GET WILDLY INVOLVED
“People are fed by the food industry, which pays no attention to health, and are treated by the health industry, which pays no attention to food.”
-Wendell Berry
As a physician and autism specialist,
I have long wished to radically improve the nutrition of my patients with neurodevelopmental disorders. The Wild Minds Farm-to-Clinic Program is making that dream a reality.
Central Kentucky agricultural students, under the direction of mother-daughter team and agricultural teachers, Toni Myers and Ruth Ann Layne, are growing organic vegetables and produce at The Kentucky Castle. They have teamed up with occupational and speech therapists at Cardinal Hill Pediatric Feeding Clinic to deliver this nutritionally dense food to be used in feeding therapy sessions. Families from the feeding clinic are offered $5 vegetable bags in order to advance feeding therapy goals at home.
Students, teachers, farmers, physicians, therapists and families are ALL coming together to farm healthier brains for children in our community.
Please consider joining in our mission to Farm Healthier Brains. If you are interested in getting wildly involved, consider a donation of your time or other resources. At the top of our wish list is the construction of a sensory garden featuring broccoli sprouts - a potent food-medicine!
Email us at mindful@wildhealth.com to let us know of your interest in helping.
With Gratitude,
Kristin