“Flourish has made a huge difference for us,” said Daniel Rundle, Semple Elementary Principal.
Flourish is part of UVA’s Compassionate Schools Project and is a collaboration between UVA’s School of Education and Human Development, its Youth-Nex Center, UVA’s Contemplative Sciences Center and Jefferson County Public Schools. Flourish integrates mindfulness and movement into social-emotional learning to improve academic engagement, well-being and behavior of students.
Students who participated in Flourish had better attention control, felt more support from their classmates, and had greater belief in their ability to solve social problems. The researchers said the curriculum helped prevent problem behaviors while also promoting important developmental skills.
“I’m always stressed out about failing,” said Maddie Pfannerstill, a Louisville elementary school student, “so I use mindfulness breathing to calm myself down.”
Students, teachers, and administrators recounted their experiences with the project in videos produced about the middle of the study.
“The Compassionate Schools Project (CSP) has been wonderful for our school,” said Candace McMahon, a former CSP teacher at Lure Elementary School in Kentucky.
“We’re finding that our kids have a lot of problems in their home life that are spilling over into their school life, causing them to have trouble regulating their emotions and their ability to focus,” McMahon says. “CSP really gives them concrete strategies that they can implement when they’re feeling tense or stressed. And those are strategies that will help them not just in school, but throughout their lives.”
Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio said the findings confirm what teachers and principals who participated in the study have been telling them.
“This curriculum helps all students, especially those in schools with the most support, prepare them to learn every day,” Pollio said. “And it provides lasting protection against disruptive behavior that not only benefits students, but their peers, teachers, schools and entire systems.”
The effects were more pronounced in schools in high-poverty areas, with students showing improvements in their social problem-solving skills and positive behavior, and decreases in problem behavior.
“These results suggest that through this curriculum, which is part of their general education, students can develop important resilience skills that are well-documented to lead to improved academic, mental health and behavioral functioning in the long term,” said Patrick Tolan, a professor of education at the University of Virginia and lead researcher on the study. “It’s encouraging to see that where the need is greatest, the benefits are greatest.”
UVA researchers say the program is unique and innovative in its focus on reflection and its integration of compassion and mindful awareness practices.
“While more social-emotional learning programs are incorporating mindfulness into their curricula, few have taken such a comprehensive approach in designing programs that foster students’ psychological well-being, social-emotional skills, physical health and mindfulness,” said Tish Jennings, a professor in the University of Virginia School of Education and co-author of the Flourish curriculum.
Based on positive results from an earlier pilot study and with funding support from a coalition of partners, the researchers launched an eight-year randomized controlled trial. The effectiveness of the curriculum was measured over a two-year period, with a follow-up study to track its impact over time.
“The Flourish curriculum is still being implemented with integrity, and educators continue to benefit from the training and support,” said Alexis Harris, director of the Compassionate Schools Project and co-author of Flourish.
“We were blown away by the dedicated work of the people who collaborated with us to fill important knowledge gaps: researchers, educators, school administrators, funders, advisors, and community partners,” said Owsley Brown III, director of the University of Virginia Center for Contemplative Science. “Mindfulness practice is well known to be effective in many settings and is often used in schools, but there has been no high-quality research on whether and how it supports young children’s learning. Louisville has provided a rich trove of answers, and this is just the beginning.”
