Mindfulness for Youth & Teachers: Awaken Pittsburg
Updated: Jan 11, 2022
From Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
By Jill Daly
Path of Freedom Graduate Stephanie Romero Develops Mindfulness Programs for Youth and Teachers
Newly armed with a doctorate in education, Stephanie Romero, executive director of the new nonprofit Awaken Pittsburgh, is developing curriculum for mindfulness with projects in various sites in the Pittsburgh area.
During her studies — with a focus on mindfulness as a teacher — she discovered efforts to use meditative practices to help at-risk youth. Ms. Romero said she found a compelling curriculum called Path of Freedom, designed for at-risk and incarcerated youth and adult prisoners and developed by Kate Crisp and Fleet Maull.
The program goal is to give participants greater self-awareness, improved impulse control and greater social awareness.
Ms. Romero has delivered the Path of Freedom program to prisoners in the Allegheny County Jail.
“It changed the way I worked with kids,” she said. “It changed me deeply.”