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YOUTH TRAINER · AGES 12–19
Mindfulness Youth Trainer
Learn to guide young people through the Attention Works! programme for adolescents. Choose the full five-day training, or take the two-day advanced route if you are already a certified Mindfulness Child Trainer.
Who it's for?
For professionals who work with young people.
For professionals who want to help adolescents meet stress, emotions, pressure and change with greater awareness and choice.
Certified Child Trainers
For AMT Child Trainers who want to extend their work from children to adolescents through the two-day advanced route.
Teachers & Educational Professionals
For professionals working with young people in schools and other educational settings.
Therapists, Coaches & Youth Professionals
For professionals who support adolescents and want to bring a structured mindfulness approach into their work.
What it brings you
A practical method for working with adolescents, and the confidence to bring it into your own professional setting.
A complete programme designed specifically for working with adolescents
Practical exercises and a clear structure you can use with groups of young people
A deeper understanding of how to bring mindfulness into the world of adolescents in a way that feels natural and relevant
Certification in the Eline Snel Method and a place in AMT’s international network of trainers
Inside the training
Learn the method. Learn to make it theirs.
Working with adolescents asks for a different language and a different approach. Throughout the training, you learn how to bring mindfulness to young people in a way that connects with their lives, while staying grounded in the Eline Snel Method.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:
Explore what happens during adolescence, from brain development and changing emotions to identity, peer influence and the particular strengths of the adolescent brain. Learn what this means for the way you teach and communicate.
Learn to guide meditations, exercises and reflective conversations in a way that feels natural for adolescents. Practise asking questions, listening without judgement and allowing silence when a young person does not want to share.
Get to know the structure and content of the programme and experience its practices for yourself. Each lesson brings together a theme, meditation, theory, stories or metaphors, inquiry and movement, all adapted to adolescents.
Explore how to work with some of the things adolescents meet every day: strong emotions, worrying thoughts, stress, judgement and automatic reactions. Learn how mindfulness can help them notice what is happening without immediately having to act on it.
Learn how to create a group in which young people feel safe enough to participate in their own way. Talking is invited, never forced, and trust is allowed to grow over time.
Your own presence matters. Explore how your experiences and reactions can enter the room, recognise transference and countertransference, and notice when you feel the urge to convince, fix, protect or withdraw.
Learn how to start well: exploring motivation and expectations with both the young person and their parent or carer, while giving the adolescent space to speak for themselves.
Learn how to encourage young people to take ownership of their mindfulness practice. The trainer offers structure, safety and invitation rather than control, while parents deliberately take a smaller role.
THE PROGRAMME YOU’LL TEACH
Attention Works!®
Attention Works! for adolescents brings mindfulness into the everyday reality of young people: school, friendships, expectations, emotions, stress and the constant stream of thoughts and distractions. Through practical exercises, young people learn to notice what is happening in their body, thoughts and feelings before automatically reacting.
They practise directing their attention, recognising patterns and creating a little more space between what happens and what they do next. As a trainer, you learn how to create an environment in which young people can explore this for themselves, without telling them how they should feel or behave.
How it's structured
Two routes. One certification.
You don’t need to learn twice what you already know. That’s why the Youth Trainer training has two routes, depending on your previous AMT training.
Which route is yours?
Not sure which training applies to you? Start with the route that matches your previous AMT training.
Choose the five-day full training if:
You are not yet a certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainer, and you have:
✓ Completed, or nearly completed, an eight-week MBSR or MBCT training
✓ Your own regular mindfulness practice
✓ Professional experience working with teenagers
Choose the two-day advanced route if:
✓ You are already a certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainer
✓ You have professional experience working with teenagers
YOUR CERTIFICATION
Become a certified Mindfulness Youth Trainer.
Complete the route that applies to you and meet the certification requirements to become certified to teach the Attention Works! programme for adolescents.
Your personal AMT certification as a Mindfulness Youth Trainer.
Your official frog quality mark, showing that you are trained and certified in the method.
A personal profile so schools, organisations and families can find you.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
What Youth Trainers took with them.
Agenda
Find a group that fits.
Upcoming start dates for the Mindfulness Youth Trainer groups — in person and online, in several languages.
No upcoming start dates at the moment. New groups are added regularly.
What's included
Your materials
Learning and support
Also included
No dates fit your time or location?
Leave your details and we'll let you know as soon as a new group opens that fits.
Good to know
Questions, answered.
The training is for professionals who work with teenagers and want to bring mindfulness into their work. Depending on your previous training, you can follow either the five-day full training or the two-day advanced route.
For the five-day full training, you need to have completed, or nearly completed, an eight-week MBSR or MBCT training and have your own regular mindfulness practice.
If you are already a certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainer, you can follow the two-day advanced route.
Choose the five-day full training if you are not yet a certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainer.
If you are already a certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainer, the two-day advanced route builds on what you have already learned and focuses specifically on working with adolescents.
Yes. Professional experience working with teenagers is a requirement for the training. The course builds on that experience and helps you bring the Eline Snel Method into your work with adolescents.
There are two routes. The full training consists of five training days and includes the foundations of the Eline Snel Method as well as the specific approach for adolescents. Certified AMT Mindfulness Child Trainers follow a two-day advanced route focused specifically on working with young people.
Ready when you are.
Still thinking it over? Explore a little further, or get in touch. We’re happy to help you decide whether the training is right for you.
Explore a little further
Read more about the method, certification and the experiences of other trainers.
Talk to us
Have a question about the training, requirements or practical details? We’re happy to help.