Community Collaboration and Resilience Exchange (CARE)
Practicing in the service of courageous communities.
Copper Beech believes access to mindfulness and contemplative practice is a human right. Each year, we offer these free practices in our community to veterans, survivors of trauma, those in the prison system, people in recovery from addiction, educators, and the frontline professionals who support them.
CARE has four inter-related dimensions:
Community collaborations with those most impacted by trauma, poverty, and systemic oppression
• Mindfulness facilitation offered by Copper Beech core facilitators on a weekly basis
• MFC Collaborative: Graduates of our Mindfulness Facilitator Certification who commit to offering 50 hours of service within the community annually.
• MFC Volunteer Project: Current Mindfulness Facilitator Certifications students who volunteer 20 hours of service within their own community
Transformative Leadership Program Piloting: Offering free and subsidized mindfulness programming to frontline nonprofit professionals working in communities most impacted by trauma, poverty, and systemic oppression
Scholarships to eliminate financial barriers to Copper Beech programming
Community of Daily Practice: Daily communities of mindfulness practice and support
MFC Collaborative
The Mindfulness Facilitator Certification (MFC) Collaborative offers a tuition-free pathway to deepen one’s skills and embodiment as a mindfulness facilitator while offering an additional 50 hours of volunteer mindfulness facilitation through the CARE program.
How It Works
Once accepted into the MFC Collaborative, collaborators follow the typical MFC training pathway from March through November on a tuition-free basis. Upon successful graduation from the MFC program and completion of the community project, collaborators then commit to offering 50 hours of volunteer facilitation over the following 12 months, typically at one of Copper Beech Institute’s local nonprofit partners that works within communities most impacted by trauma, poverty, and systemic oppression. Collaborators meet monthly with a Copper Beech Collaborative Mentor who supports their continued learning and service work. At the conclusion of the 50 hours of service, collaborators agree to creating a blog post detailing their experience in the program and a recorded interview that Copper Beech may use in promotional materials.
Where It Works
Copper Beech Institute has established several local internship sites in the greater Hartford area where volunteer mindfulness facilitation can be offered. For students outside the Hartford area or for those who wish to complete their internship at a nonprofit of their own choosing, collaborators will only be admitted to the MFC Collaborative who have confirmed their volunteer placement in writing from the organization’s Executive Director or supervisor. Should the terms of the placement change, MFC Collaborative must work with their Collaborative Mentor to seek alternative placement, including nonprofits outside of their hometown.
Selection Process
After submitting a Collaborative application, a pool of finalists will be invited to interview. Three MFC Collaborators will be chosen from the finalists to receive a full financial scholarship in exchange for committing to volunteering 50 hours of service after graduation. We will announce MFC Collaborators by January 2, 2022. Volunteer hours must be completed within a year of graduation.
Applications for the MFC Collaborative have closed.
We also strive to transform and heal the very conditions that cause suffering in our communities by dovetailing our CARE program work with healing and justice work, which challenges various systems of oppression that influence our society. We seek to uplift and listen deeply to those most impacted by oppression and assist others in becoming effective allies in the work of liberation and social healing. For more information about these initiatives, please read our Healing and Justice Statement and contact us at grants@copperbeechinstitute.org.
Feedback from Our Partners
“You are helping us to bring a huge change to the whole institution. Powerful!”
- St. Francis Hospital Staff Member
“This community gives me an extended family of support and love.”
-Jackie P.
“Being in jail this time was the best thing that ever happened to me because, for the first time in my life, I am finally developing the tools to not have to come back to jail thanks to Copper Beech Institute.”
- Inmate, Hartford Correctional Center
“Thanks to your sessions, I survived the past year.”
-Wendy
“My favorite part was being able to open up and find myself through my trauma. I learned how to be myself and that my trauma doesn’t make me who I am.”
- Trauma Survivor, McCall Center
“This program has become one of our most successful and desired programs I’ve ever seen working in Corrections, especially in a jail setting. The instructors are fabulous - always on time, always call in case they can’t make it, and extremely professional. They have modified the program with time to assist staff.”
- Staff member, Hartford Correctional Center
“I have learned how to love myself and how to develop coping skills.”
- Community Partners in Action
Testimonials from Our Teachers
“In spring 2017, I had the privilege of beginning this journey of learning and teaching and connecting thanks to Copper Beech Institute's mission of "compassionate action" in the service of vulnerable populations. I began serving individuals I might never have been able to practice with otherwise, and who might not have had access to mindfulness practices in their lives due to the challenges of their economic conditions, geographical locations, mental health, and other factors. To be able to practice with people from all walks of life and learn more about our capacity to heal, grow, learn, and support each other is something that has been so big in my life. As a practitioner and teacher-in-outreach, this work expands my awareness and capacity for curiosity, trauma-informed practices, and feeling truly of service.”
- Sandrine Harris, Copper Beech Institute outreach-teacher
"Having the privilege to be welcomed into Hartford Correctional Center each week for the last four and a half years has offered me incredible insight into the resilience and capacity for transformation of folks so deeply caught in patterns of violence, addiction, shame, or blame. To hold space and witness some of the revelations and commitments to change that these men have chosen to engage with is one of the greatest honors of my teaching career thus far. The trust they afford me and the willingness that some of them show to try something they've never tried before is a gift I can never repay."
- Miranda Chapman, Copper Beech Institute outreach-teacher