SiTT

Support for Integrity in Teaching and Training

 

What is SiTT?

SiTT facilitates a community of mindfulness teachers that acknowledge one another’s experience and expertise and support each other to meet ongoing good practice guidelines. All SiTT affiliated activities, including monthly group meetings, community days and retreats, are run and led by the participants on a co-operative basis and are therefore described as “peer-led”. This approach, conducted mindfully and in an atmosphere of mutual care and co-operation, means the events are a form of practice in and of themselves. SiTT believes that formal supervision and teacher led retreats are necessary for ongoing good practice. The peer-led model is intended as an additional support to mindfulness teaching and training and not as an alternative in meeting Good Practice Guidelines. The role of SiTT is to facilitate peer-led activities by connecting members, arranging logistics, guidelines and personal contact for information, advice and support. The aspiration is for SiTT to develop a community of mindfulness teachers, trainers and trainees.

 

Foundations of the SiTT Community

Mindfulness practice leads to a greater awareness of our common humanity. We all get stressed, we get scared, we worry. We all generally want to be happy, love, feel loved and have peace of mind; it is part of the human condition. Through practice we also become aware that the quality of our lives is directly related to the way we act and react to other people, that we are fundamentally interconnected, and that competition and personal gain therefore make little sense. These realisations are, however, strikingly easy to forget as we go about our day to day lives, especially our professional lives – even as mindfulness teachers. Reminding ourselves of this is a practice and this practice forms the foundation of the SiTT Community.

 

Background and Beginnings

SiTT started with a group of mindfulness teachers based in Exeter who recognise the value of community in commitment to personal practice and authentic teaching. Others came on board and the SiTT community started to grow. SiTT members attend monthly group meetings, community days, practice days and peer-led retreats.

 

Objectives

1. To facilitate a community of mindfulness teachers, trainers and trainees that support one another to uphold integrity and meet good practice guidelines.
2. To enable mindfulness teachers to use relationships within the community as an opportunity to practice self-awareness and common humanity.
3. To lower the financial commitment of meeting ongoing good practice requirements for the mindfulness teaching community.

 

SiTT Group Meetings

Monthly meetings offer teachers the space to come together for practice, peer reflection and connection. The 2-hour meetings start in silence which is maintained until after the 20-minute arrival sit. This is followed by a 40-minute peer reflection segment in which mindful communication and skilful responding support teachers to reflect around a particular theme, such as one of the domains of the MBI-TAC, an attitudinal foundation or something more specific to their specialism. The group then moves into a 20-minute tea break in which connections and relationships are formed in areas outside of mindfulness teaching. The group comes back together for the final 40-minute sitting practice.

 

Members can attend any open group once as a participant and then enter the rotation to facilitate the monthly meetings. This may feel like a challenge for some which presents a valuable opportunity for using practice to resource and turn towards. Those wishing to set up a new group, either open to any community member or closed for those working within a specialism, can attend SiTT Group Induction events. Groups are established, coordinated and updated by a SiTT Coordinator and members all have access to a dropbox account in which they can see the monthly theme, find out who and how many will be in attendance, and note their observations about how the group is progressing.

 

Community Days

While monthly meetings support connections between teachers working closely with one another, either by geography or by specialism, Community Days bring together teachers, trainers and trainees applying mindfulness across a range of fields and locations. This creates a bigger container for learning and connection. Workshops focus on mindful communication, community building and peer reflection on teaching and practice. Community days are also an opportunity for members to get updates based on shared learning from the community.

 

Peer-Led Retreats and Practice days

Peer-led retreats and practice days bring mindfulness teachers together to work cooperatively and share responsibility for supporting one another to uphold good practice. Turning towards the challenge of co-leading a retreat is a wonderful opportunity to work with our own habitual patterns of thought and behaviour and a place in which we can connect in our common humanity. The ethos is of shared contribution. Everyone takes responsibility for guiding practice, facilitating sessions, cooking, cleaning and all other aspects of leading the retreat.

 

SiTT Community

• A choice of monthly SiTT Group meetings, either in person or online.
• SiTT Group induction for those wishing to set up new groups. Groups can be open to the whole community or closed to those working within a specialism.
• Ongoing support and coordination for monthly groups, community days and retreats and further development of the broader SiTT community.
• SiTT member logo to demonstrate commitment to good practice
• Community Days
• Practice days
• Peer-led Retreats
• Facebook and Whatsapp Groups

 

SiTT Contributions

Details supplied on request