Tuc-el-Nuit school looking for clothing and household donations to finance Mindful Centre for stressed and anxious kids

In an ideal world, all students would come to school ready to learn. Young kids would be stress and anxiety-free. Families would be solid, homes would be secure, peers would be kind. Because this isn’t that world, Tuc-el-Nuit school is piloting an innovative approach to helping kids learn to cope with stress and anxiety.

The school’s brand new Mindful Centre – built as a collaboration between the school, the district’s Aboriginal Support program, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of the Okanagan – is incredibly simple, entirely accessible, and impressively well-used. Most importantly, it is achieving measurable results for Tuc-el-Nuit students.

“Kids carry a lot of stress but, unlike most adults, they don’t have the coping skills to handle it. When their brains are preoccupied, they can’t learn,” explains Pam Teigen, Big Brothers and Big Sisters’ South Okanagan Program Manager and a co-creator of the Mindful Centre. “The Mindful Centre is a place that students can come to be present in the moment, to take time to self-regulate, to calm their brain and body, to develop coping strategies so they can better manage stress and anxiety now and hopefully later in life.”

The Mindful Centre concept is simple: in the centre of the school library sit four cubicles, each offering a variety of calming, sensory items to smell, touch, watch, listen to and experience. A student overwhelmed by stress or anxiety can either request a visit to the Mindful Centre or can be encouraged to visit it by their teacher at any time during the school day. They then have five minutes to sit at one of the Mindful Centre cubicles, quietly de-escalating and re-centering themselves.

The Mindful Centre has blossomed into an integral part of Tuc-el-Nuit School. Throughout the day, students of all ages come quietly into the library, sit at one of the cubicles for a handful of minutes, and leave a little calmer and more ready to learn. On a five point self check-in scale, Mindful Centre users report an average de-escalation from stress to calm of one to two points.

“When I ask classes if any of the kids feel like the Mindful Centre has helped them, they all put their hands up. I didn’t realise the impact it would have with so many children,” says Marlene Kearsley, Tuc-el-Nuit’s librarian and the creative thinker who first dreamed up the Mindful Centre concept. “There’s no shame to using the Mindful Centre. It’s not like being sent to a timeout chair or into the hallway. Because the Mindful Centre is open to everyone, and has been welcomed so much by everyone, using it is really normalized.”

“The kids who need this most, it’s not the kids who are having the temper tantrums and making a fuss in class. It’s the kids who are sitting quietly, who are withdrawing and shutting down, who aren’t able to concentrate and have no words or no confidence to articulate how they’re feeling,” she adds. “They are the kids we might not catch until too late. Instead, this offers them the chance to quietly, privately, calm themselves so they are able to learn.”

What can you do to help support Tuc-el-Nuit’s Mindful Centre? From Wednesday, April 20th until Tuesday, April 26th, a large trailer will be parked at Tuc-el-Nuit school. The school is looking to the community for donations of clothing, books, toys, household items, etc (virtually anything except furniture and food) to fill the trailer. The contents will then be sold to Value Village, with proceeds going directly towards growing and improving Tuc-el-Nuit’s Mindful Centre. If you can help, please drop donations at Tuc-el-Nuit school, or call/text Benita at 250 498 7152 to arrange pick-up. Special note: if you plan to host a garage sale next weekend, we’d be happy to pick up your ‘leftovers’ at the end of your sale.

If you are anxious, you are living in the future.
If you are depressed, you are living in the past.
If you are at peace, you are living in the present.
-Lao Tzu

Helen and Pam Teigen of Big Brothers/Big Sisters with Librarian Marlene Kearsley and Principal Shendah Benoit