• Residential Retreats - The Inner Resilience Program offers seasonal weekend retreats for school personnel. These retreats honor the genuine need for rest and rejuvenation while also introducing educators to practical strategies for staying calm, strong, and creative within the turmoil and stresses of work and life. Participants take home powerful and practical tools for keeping alive a sense of purpose as they are renewed and sustained for the long haul.


• After-School Workshops - A key part of The Inner Resilience Program's work is the after-school workshops offered to school personnel. These workshop topics are selected by the individual schools and are tailored to meet the specific needs of school communities. They are conducted at the individual school sites and are facilitated by a range of experts in the fields of education, trauma recovery, and psychology.


• Nurturing the Inner Life Series - This four-part monthly after-school group is hosted at our downtown training space, which offers an atmosphere of safety and relaxation. Through interactive exercises, individual reflection and small group discussion, educators explore the skills needed to stay centered in times of transition and change.


• Individual Stress Reduction Sessions - The Inner Resilience Program's stress reduction days offer school personnel individual sessions in bodywork from certified practitioners at their school site. Individual stress reduction sessions, which typically last 20 minutes, offer emotional support through the use of holistic techniques and tools that incorporate relaxation and self-care techniques, creative movement, gentle stretching exercises, and healing touch.


• Yoga Classes - We also offer weekly yoga classes to school-based staff. Classes are offered through the leadership of a skilled yoga instructor and take place at our training space. Participants learn relaxation and breathing techniques, increase their flexibility, and connect with other school staff in a relaxed setting.


• Youth Leadership Development - The Inner Resilience Program hosts retreats for students including, youth leadership retreats, and retreats for graduating high school seniors and graduating 5th graders. These retreats help students process their experiences and explore their feelings in an atmosphere of emotional safety. In addition to the retreats, we provide trainings in student mediation that equip students with the conflict resolution skills needed to serve as peer mediators in their schools.

Building Resiliency from the Inside Out, our k-12 Curriculum
In order to make a more direct and long-term impact on students, The Inner Resilience Program is helping teachers to incorporate many of our resiliency-building techniques into the fabric of their classroom practices and instructional program with the use of our k-12 curriculum, Building Resiliency from the Inside Out. The curriculum covers topics such as the effects of stress and trauma on the body; stress management and effective coping skills; creative movement and gentle stretching; accessing silence and using reflective practices that quiet the mind and focus attention. A group of 50 teachers has piloted the curriculum and we are now in the process of revising it for publication.

Developing Inner Resiliency Skills for Parents and Caregivers
The Inner Resilience Program is helping parents and caregivers to increase their own inner resiliency and to understand the needs of children exposed to trauma and stress. An important part of our program is the parent workshop program. Parent workshops are conducted at the school site on a variety of topics, including: Emotional Intelligence, Violence in the Media, and Anger Management.

In addition to these workshops, Linda Lantieri is writing a book and CD, Building Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to Cultivate Inner Strength in Children. She has partnered with renowned psychologist Daniel Goleman, who is writing the introduction and will be leading the guided practices on the CD. These  techniques for quieting the mind and calming the body will reach a much wider audience. The book is published by Sounds True (2008, forthcoming).

Resilience & Renewal Fellowship

The Resilience and Renewal Fellows are a cohort of 70 3rd-5th grade classroom teachers from four boroughs in the NYC schools who will spend the 2007-2008 school year participating in a comprehensive scientific evaluation of our work that will allow us to determine the effectiveness of our program. This study, funded by the Fetzer Institute, is one of five in the nation that is studying the effects of "transformational professional development". Teachers in the treatment group will participate in all core program activities and be trained in our curriculum for use in their classrooms. We will be looking at teachers' intra - and interpersonal change, including stress levels and job satisfaction, as well as changes in classroom climate. The study will be completed by summer 2008.