Branch Training: MBCT for Cancer

6 Day Training

Location Online

Date 06/06/2024 - 22/06/2024

Time 08:00 - 15:00 BST

Description

This is a specialist training for mindfulness-based teachers currently working or interested in working with people with cancer (or those with life threatening illness).

It takes place over 6 days with nearly two weeks between the modules which will give participants the opportunity to bring what they learn on the course into their work with clients and patients – and within their own everyday lives.

We will explore the values, practice and approach of mindfulness and cancer based on the Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Cancer (MBCT-Ca) program, that was developed by Trish Bartley, who will be co-leading this training with Christina Shennan, a highly experienced MBCT-Ca teacher, trainer and supervisor. This training offers a unique opportunity to develop skills, inspiration and understanding and to connect with others working in psycho-oncology, cancer support, palliative care and other community, health, and education contexts. It is offered to mindfulness-based teachers, who have already undertaken some basic mindfulness-based teacher training.

Participants need to commit to the entire online training in order to receive a certificate at the end.

This is a training designed for those who teach mindfulness. It is not appropriate for those who have had cancer themselves and want some personal mindfulness training for their own wellbeing in relation to a personal experience of cancer.

Module 1 – Thursday 6^th – Saturday 8^th June 2024.

Module 2 – Thursday 20^st – Saturday 22^rd June 2024

Both modules will take place between 8:00 -15:00 UK time (with an hour’s break around 11:30)

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The OMF provides Confirmation of Attendance letters to all participants who attend and take part in all aspects of 100% of the training event, including break out rooms, with their camera on.

What will I do on this course?

Much of your learning will come from your own experience of the MBCT-Ca program on the training, and discussion around the rationale for what we do on the program and why this is important in the context of cancer and life-threatening illness. The training will include:

practice
dialogue and inquiry in both peer groups and the large group
MBCT-Ca exercises and processes
discussion and reflection in small and large groups
presentation
You will have the opportunity to experience specific aspects of the programme as if a participant – and also engage in teaching the brief practices to your peers.

Learning Outcomes

Over our time together, we will explore the intention, approach, and unique aspects of the MBCT-Ca programme, paying particular attention to your learning around:

ways of adapting the core practices as they are guided for cancer participants.
the brief practices and processes that have been created within MBCT-Ca – that are highly relevant to one-to-one work and health care support.
ways of emphasising and working with kindness and self-compassion in our work.
understanding the model that underpins MBCT-Ca – and the place of the four practice movements of Intention; Coming Back; Turning Towards; and Kindness.
How to work with the body for participants and support the embodiment of the teacher and in the context of serious physical illness.
exploring the teaching implications of working with this population and how we can support ourselves as teachers.

About the Teachers

Trish Bartley

I am a mindfulness teacher trainer and author - and have been involved in mindfulness since 1999 and the beginning of MBCT. I have two special interests within the mindfulness field – one is in relation to work with people with cancer – and the other is concerned with groupwork practice. I adapted a specialist MBCT programme for people with cancer (MBCT-Ca) and published two books on the subject in 2012 and 2017 – the first for teachers and second for people with cancer themselves. I have recently co-authored Teaching Mindfulness-Based Groups. I am one of the founder members of the CMRP core training team and train for the Mindfulness Network. I have a background in community development and have worked in rural development with local people in an ex-‘homeland’ area in South Africa. From 2001 - 2020, I taught regular 8-week MBCT programmes to people with cancer, within a North Wales oncology unit. I now work with a few people with advanced cancer one to one online. I train on the Mindfulness Network (MN) teacher’s training pathway and taught for 15 years on the Bangor University Mindfulness Masters programme until 2020. I supervise teachers from different parts of the world, lead workshops and train mindfulness teachers in Europe and occasionally further afield, and I offer brief mindfulness interventions to UK health professionals through Mayfly https://mayfly.org.uk I am also grandmother to 4 fast-growing young, gardener, border collie companion, and keen listener to music.

Christina Shennan

I am a psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher, trainer and supervisor. I have a special interest in mindfulness in cancer care. I work as a psychotherapist in a cancer charity, providing 1:1 therapeutic interventions across the cancer pathway and teach MBCT-Ca. I also teach MBCT in a NHS IAPT service in the north west of England. I am a member of the Centre for Mindfulness Research and Practice (CMRP) core training team and am Module Organiser and Tutor on the Teaching One Module of the Masters in Mindfulness at Bangor University. In 2009 I was awarded a Cancer Experiences Collaborative (CECo) Scholarship which was taken at the Division of Health Research, International Observatory on End of Life Care, Lancaster University, where I co-authored Shennan, C., Payne, S. and Fenlon, D. (2011), What is the evidence for the use of mindfulness-based interventions in cancer care? A review. Psycho-Oncology, 20: 681–697. doi: 10.1002/pon.1819.