Take a mindful moment next week during Lights On Afterschool

The Afterschool Alliance is extremely excited to announce that as a part of our week of virtual events for this year’s Lights On Afterschool, we will be partnering with Committee for Children, a global nonprofit organization that has developed the Second Step curriculum for social and emotional learning and is a leading voice for ensuring the safety and well-being of kids. On Friday, October 23 at 5 p.m. ET,  Committee for Children will help the Alliance close out our jam-packed week of virtual Lights On Afterschool events by hosting the event “Taking a Mindful Moment: Expressing Gratitude.” Register here!

Helping us to round out this week full of connections, reflections, and new ideas, this event will help us all come together for a mindful moment: an opportunity to breathe and take stock of all the great learnings of the week. Even more specifically, this mindfulness session will be focused on the power of expressing gratitude. Even in the midst of so many unknowns and the need for so much resilience, we can find ways to be grateful for things in our lives both big and small, and we think that this event will provide children, youth, and afterschool practitioners with some much-needed space to check in with ourselves and process all that we will have learned. 

The exercise will be focused on Committee for Children’s Mind Yeti resources, many of which are available for free! Implementation specialist Casey Escola will lead us through 30 minutes of mindfulness practice that will be appropriate for both kids and grown-ups. We will begin and end with a Mind Yeti session (designed for kids) and discuss the importance of gratitude in adult's lives by exploring a lesson from the SEL for Adults program by the makers of Second Step. Sign up to join us for some relaxation, fun, and gratitude!