Inward Bound Mindfulness

Inward Bound Mindfulness' mission is to provide accessible, in-depth mindfulness programming for youth and the parents and professionals who support them. At its core, the diverse community of Inward Bound teens and adults seek to create healthier inner and outer worlds. They come from the edges of dominant cultures with the belief that another way of living is not only possible, but a fundamental right. Our extensive network of 120+ staff, teachers, health coordinators, and mentors are experts in the fields of mindfulness, youth development, mental health, and education, and have lived experiences that deeply connect with the teens we serve, emplifying authenticity, compassion, and respect, upholding a strong code of ethics. As the national leader in immersive mindfulness for teens, Inward Bound has seen through its 30+ year history that training young people in secular mindfulness and creating highly inclusive communities rooted in mindfulness help them better process anxiety, depression, and trauma. It also helps generate more positive emotions such as joy and self-worth, and gives teens the skills to meet future challenges with focus, resilience, and compassion for themselves, their communities, and the environment. Programs aimed at more systemic impact include our internationally-accredited Teacher Training Program and Custom Programs in partnership with school communities and youth-serving organizations across the country. Perhaps our most distinctive capacity for success is our Collaborative Leadership (CL) System which emphasizes shared decision-making and robust feedback, and creates more pathways for community members, especially youth, parents, and partners, to have increased input and investment. This organizational structure, which has no Executive Director, is the result of our equity commitments and examinations of how power is distributed within our organization. It was researched and developed for three years with the consult of international leaders in the field before being fully launched in January 2020. At the core of the CL System are the full-time staff and five standing committees that include Youth Advisory and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility Committees. A member from each committee serves as a representative on the Board of Directors and need-based stipends are available to support committee member participation.

Our vision is to support future generations of heart-centered, diverse leaders who are prepared to r

Goal One: Expand access to in-depth secular mindfulness programs for to youth and the adults who support them through existing retreat models, affinity programming, and mutually beneficial partnerships.

Goal Two: Expand and strengthen existing programming models through ongoing community engagement, youth-centered outreach, and strategic regional partnerships in all communities we have the capacity to serve.

Goal Three: Leverage operational excellence and financial vitality to live into our ambitious future while embodying, protecting, and strengthening the heart and whole of iBme (e.g., mission, vision, values).

Our program success requires an ongoing and thoughtful evaluation of our internal organizational culture. In 2020, iBme launched a Collaborative Leadership model and began implementing several initiatives to expand our collaborative consciousness and capacity. These policies are one step towards achieving our vision of accountable, transparent, diverse leadership and governance. Within our Collaborative Leadership system, decisions are distributed based on each person’s and committee’s roles and responsibilities, willingness, and resources. Designing and implementing internal frameworks rooted in inclusive and shared power paradigms will prepare us to serve more youth from vulnerable communities and to work with more diverse teachers and staff. The five core systems outlined in the Bay Nonviolent Communication Collaboration in the Workplace model include (1) distributed decision making, (2) feedback flow, (3) information flow, (4) resource flow, and (5) conflict engagement.

- Holding Trust in Our Hands - It is often the case that the questions we ask are more revealing than the answers we give. For within the question, a need is already present. iBme, along with the rest of the world, asked many questions in 2020 and 2021. We share two of them here, along with some of the answers we discovered together. What does our community do when the world we know changes so suddenly and dramatically? We hold the hands of people we trust and greet the unknown together. March 11, 2020. For many of us, this was the day we realized how severe COVID-19 might be. For iBme, it meant our core programs—residential retreats—were in jeopardy. With school closings, the loss of critical support systems, and the cancellation of so many precious milestone experiences for teens and young adults, it also meant that our primary audience would be the heaviest impacted by the pandemic. We responded quickly, and after five days of prep, we held our first online retreat for 62 teens and young adults. A week later, we held our second retreat for 107 participants. And with that, our online programs were off and running. In addition to retreats, we now offer online programming including retreats, affinity groups, and drop-in classes, which play a critical role in building new skills and interest for teens pre-retreat and supporting teens in sustaining their practice post-retreat. Since March 2020, we have served 3,600 participants across 260 online program offerings.