These skills and competencies programme for mindfulness teachers explores how mindfulness and the arts can come together to deepen practice, foster emotional resilience, and support mental health. Whether in healthcare settings, cultural institutions, or community spaces, mindful art engagement can help us connect more fully – to ourselves, to others, and to the present moment.
Developed by Jolien Posthumus, this specialist programme is designed for trained mindfulness teachers who wish to integrate art-based approaches into their mindfulness teaching and professional practice. You’ll engage with research-informed practices, experience key practices firsthand, and develop grounded ways of weaving art into your mindfulness teaching, supported through peer intervision and mentorship/supervision.
“Mindfully engaging with art can help us cultivate a beginner’s mind, enhance our sensory awareness, build the courage to face difficulties, and foster appreciation and joyfulness. In art we encounter life at its fullest.“
Jolien Posthumus
Teacher, Trainer, Supervisor & Practitioner
Rather than following a fixed model or curriculum, the training supports participants in developing approaches that feel authentic, context-sensitive, and grounded in their own experience and professional practice. Through dialogue, experimentation, reflection, peer learning, and supervision, there is space to deepen understanding, refine ideas, and explore meaningful ways of integrating mindfulness and art within healthcare, education, cultural, or community settings.
While grounded in the integrity and intentions of mindfulness-based approaches such as MBSR and MBCT, the training also creates space to explore mindfulness as a lived and relational practice – extending beyond the formal curriculum into everyday life, culture, and society.
Please note: This programme is not a Mindfulness in Museums teacher training. A separate advanced training building on this programme is offered for those wishing to further specialise in the Mindfulness in Museums approach.
By the end of the programme, you’ll have developed a grounded understanding of mindfulness in art, alongside the confidence and practical insight to shape your own offerings and integrate this work into your professional practice.
On completion, you’ll a receive ‘Certificate of Attendance’ from Oxford Mindfulness.
What to expect on this course
This training offers an experiential and reflective learning space where mindfulness, art, and mental health come together in a grounded and embodied way. Participants engage with contemporary research, practice, dialogue, inquiry, and shared exploration while discovering how this work may unfold within their own professional context, including healthcare, education, cultural, or community settings.
Through dialogue, peer reflection, breakout groups, and shared inquiry, participants collaboratively explore what it means to work with mindful art engagement within their own professional context in ways that are safe, attuned, and responsive to the people and environments they work with.
While grounded in the integrity and intentions of mindfulness-based approaches such as MBSR and MBCT, the training also creates space to explore mindfulness as a lived and relational practice – extending beyond the formal curriculum into everyday life, culture, and society.
For some participants, this means exploring how art can enrich existing mindfulness-based programmes. For others, it may open inquiry into how mindfulness and art can support connection, mental health, and embodied presence within wider social and cultural contexts.
The programme includes 8 online teaching and practice sessions of 2.5–3 hours, alongside peer intervision and individual mentorship/supervision with Jolien Posthumus. On completion of the programme, participants will receive a Certificate of Attendance from Oxford Mindfulness. To be eligible, participants are required to attend all sessions, including breakout rooms, peer intervision sessions, and individual mentorship/supervision sessions with Jolien Posthumus.
Full course dates
Training takes place on Fridays, 09:00-12:00 UK Time:
- Session 1: 16 October 2026
- Session 2: 23 October 2026
- Session 3: 30 October 2026
- Session 4: 06 November 2026
- Session 5: 13 November 2026
- Session 6: 20 November 2026
- Session 7: 27 November 2026
- Session 8: 04 December 2026
Additionally, you’ll be required to arrange mentorship/supervision sessions directly with the trainer, Jolien Posthumus, and to plan 2 x intervision sessions with your peer group.
Mentorship/supervision sessions and peer intervision sessions are a required part of the training and are included in the course fee. Participants are entitled to a total of 1.5 hours of individual mentorship/supervision, which can be divided across the programme according to individual needs.
What you can do after this course
By the end of the programme, you’ll have developed a grounded understanding of mindfulness in art, alongside the confidence and practical insight to shape your own offerings and integrate this work into your professional practice.
Throughout the programme, participants are supported in developing approaches that feel authentic to their own professional context, whether in healthcare, education, cultural institutions, or community spaces.
Participants who wish to further specialise in working within museums and galleries may apply for the advanced Mindfulness in Museums summer school / specialisation training (2027/28), which builds further on the foundations explored in this programme and focuses specifically on applying mindfulness-based approaches within museum contexts.
You’ll also receive:
- Guidance notes and practical reflections from Jolien Posthumus
- Suggested reading to deepen your understanding
- Handouts and supporting materials for further integration into practice
Entry criteria – who can apply for this course?
You can apply to this course if you have:
- Actively or passively worked with art, or have the intention do so, and have the ability to develop your own programme for your own situation. A backgound in arts isn’t mandatory.
- Completed a mindfulness teacher training pathway of at least 12 months in another 8-week mindfulness-based programme (MBCT, MBSR, MBCT-L, etc), which meets the Good Practice Guidelines for training pathways, led by a trainer in-person or live online, and not self-guided*.
- Been assessed as safe to teach under supervision by your training provider and / or be registered as a mindfulness teacher on e.g. BAMBA or another equivalent directory.
- Experience with the Frame-by-Frame training and Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness. This is recommended but isn’t mandatory.
- An established and regular personal mindfulness practice, ideally for at least a year. Please see the Good Practice Guidelines for Teaching Mindfulness-Based Courses.
- Knowledge and experience of the adult population, target groups and context where you’d like to teach. This might include workplace, education, criminal justice, physical or mental healthcare, or general population settings.
- The ability to speak, write, and understand English to a level where you can fully take part in all parts of the training without the need for extra translation support.
- A stable internet connection, the right equipment and the technical skills to join an online training programme via Zoom, with the video always on.
- A private indoor space where you can take part in the training without being interrupted or overheard by other people.
If you have questions relating this course, please contact Jolien directly
*Please note: If you’re an experienced specialist mindfulness teacher from a different tradition, working within the Good Practice Guidelines and affiliated with / supported by one of the major internationally recognised mindfulness training centres, please provide full details on your application form.
Please do not sign up for this training if you’re not fully trained to teach mindfulness or are limited by only attending a course as a participant. In these cases, your application will not be approved, and you may be charged an administration fee when we refund your payment.
About Jolien Posthumus
I’m a mindfulness teacher, trainer and supervisor and founder of Mindfulness in Museums (MiM). As an Arts & Health consultant, I curate programs for cultural and healthcare institutes around the world that want to commit to social challenges in relation to healthcare and (mental) health.
In addition, in the Netherlands, I worked as the first Programme Manager Mental Health appointed to this position in a Dutch Museum, the EMYA winner Museum of the Mind.
I’m honoured to frequently be asked to speak about Arts & Health worldwide.
With a background in Applied Arts, as a mindfulness trainer (MBSR, MBCT, iMBCT, TSM, and Mindfulness Teachers Development Programme), I founded Mindfulness in Museums. I developed the Mindfulness in Museums method and implemented it in mindfulness programmes and art meditations for the public, young adults, people with mental health challenges (stress/trauma, anxiety and depression), health care professionals and caregivers of people with dementia.
With supporting partners Van Gogh Museum and Museum of the Mind, I work alongside international arts, cultural, and healthcare professionals and institutes. In the Netherlands, the first 12 mindfulness trainers completed the Dutch Mindfulness in Museums teacher training in 2023/24.
“I’m absolutely thrilled the way Oxford Mindfulness brings mindfulness to us all and creates space for us all. Being an associate of this innovate organisation means learning from and co-creating with leads in our work field.”
Jolien Posthumus
Teacher, Trainer, Supervisor & Practitioner