Inward Bound Mindfulness Education

“Mindfulness has great power to reduce stress and promote a deep sense of wellness. For adolescents today, this is an urgent need. Supporting their inner work through thoughtful and effective mindfulness programs, as they are doing at iBme, can have far-reaching consequences for the good of adolescents at this stage of their development and beyond.” — Trish Broderick, PhD, Penn State Prevention Research Center
"Heartfelt gratitude to you for a wonderful workshop!! Folks really enjoyed and got much out of the morning with you." — Candace Coffin / Director of Specialty Services, Mount Rogers Community Services Board
“As a psychology professor who teaches inner-city college students, I have lost count of the number of students who told me after my lecture on mindfulness and meditation, that they wished they knew how to do that. The iBme program has incredible potential to give students the boost they need to handle some of the challenges they face.” — Orin Davis, Quality of Life Laboratory, New York
“As a psychiatrist I have had the opportunity to see the huge benefit that a basic introduction to mindfulness practices can bring to people suffering from a wide variety of mood and anxiety disorders. What a wonderful plan iBme has to bring education in mindfulness to youths, who so often struggle to manage and tolerate their intense emotions.” — Jennifer Pasternack, MD, PhD, Erie, PA
“What a great endeavor! Our research demonstrates that mindfulness based programs can change brain structure and function, so a program like iBme can make a true, long-lasting impact on these students.” — Sara Lazar, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA
“The work that this organization does is definitely cutting edge and a most successful program. The adolescents that we have sent to the retreats and workshops have ALL had transformations and have been able to take on self-healing and have had tremendous changes in self-esteem and confidence.” — Candace Coffin, Director of Specialty Services, Mount Rogers Community Services Board
“As Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA MARC and as a long-time teacher of mindfulness for youth, on behalf of MARC I wholly endorse iBme’s work. They are on the forefront of a movement to revolutionize inner development for teens and those who serve them, something desperately needed for our youth who are increasingly stressed and lost.” — Diana Winston, UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC)
“I am excited about this growing movement and pledge 100% support to this organization, its mission and team. I have been working with youth and individuals dealing with PTSD – utilizing meditation and yoga to open pathways to awareness and mindfulness. It works. It is working, and it needs to keep working.” — Niyati Shah, Tranquil Space, Washington, DC
“I have been teaching mindfulness techniques for almost 38 years, in the US and around the world. I recognize this (iBme) as an exciting program, with integrity, compassion and intelligence.” — Sharon Salzberg, Insight Meditation Society (Barre, Ma)

Board

	Bruce Gill is a partner with Inter-Change Consultants. His areas of focus include Organizational Development, leadership development, diversity/inclusion, social-emotional learning and training. Bruce has worked with a broad range of organizations as a diversity consultant. His client work includes American Express, National Institutes of Health, Ernst & Young, and Lucent Technologies. Some of his specific work includes issues pertaining to cross-cultural communication and senior leadership coaching.
	Meara Hayden is 16 years old and lives in Perkasie, Pennsylvania with two sisters, a brother, and a Zen-practicing mother. She first encountered meditation when her brother coerced her into attending her first retreat at 14, and has taken to meditation practice better than she expected to. She works with teens every day as an officer and the clarinet section leader of her high school marching band. She hopes to go to a college with an unbeatable music program in the fall of 2013.
	Maury Cooke is the founder of the Center for Community Development, Inc. and was also a founding sponsor of iBme. A highly respected community leader in southeast Virginia, he has served as a local bank president and started or rebuilt many businesses. Since CCDI’s founding in 1990, Maury and staff have created programs responsible for affordable housing and microfinancing, the Urban Arts Center, which trains young people in creative expression, and Earthsong Organic Farm & Retreat Center. Maury has been meditating intensively since 1973.
	Marv Belzer, PhD, has taught mindfulness meditation for over fifteen years and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center. For many years he taught a semester-long meditation course in the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green St. University, where he was a Professor of philosophy. He and Diana Winston were instrumental in developing week-long mindfulness retreats for teens in the mid-1990s.
	Doug Worthen currently teaches a mindfulness course at the Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts and has completed the MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) teacher training at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He began practicing mindfulness meditation in 1999 to help athletic performance as a member of the UVA national championship lacrosse team and has been a dedicated practitioner ever since. Living through through two cancers (B-cell and T-cell lymphoma), which included a bone marrow transplant in 2007, Doug has experienced firsthand the healing power of mindfulness.
	Leslie Lytle, the mother of a teen who has attended iBme retreats, was introduced to mindfulness meditation practice in the late 1980’s. She is founder and director of OmMama, LLC, a Richmond, Virginia based business offering yoga classes and evidence-based childbirth education for women and families in their childbearing years and training for professionals who serve this audience. She previously served on the board of William Byrd Community House, a non-profit that works with at-risk youth and families in Richmond, Virginia.
	Tempel Smith has been practicing insight and metta meditation since 1989, including a year as a fully ordained monk in Burma. Tempel launched the West Coast teen retreat program and helped to launch the teen retreats in Virginia. He is a graduate of the teacher-training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California and regularly leads teen and young adult retreats in California and Virginia.
	Joe Klein is the founder of Inward Bound Mindfulness Education (iBme). He has over 20 years experience working with youth as a teacher, counselor and soccer coach. Joe brings playfulness and a whole body experiential integration to his work with young people. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor, Certified Substance Abuse Counselor and a long term practitioner of mindfulness meditation, yoga and Chinese internal martial arts. Joe teaches a graduate level course on mindfulness and SEL for teachers, social workers and counselors at Radford University and also co-leads retreats on “Mindfulness as Self-Care” for helping professionals in Southwest Virginia.

Transformative Retreats & Programs for Teens, Parents & Professionals

Board

iBme, Inc.