A compassion-focused educational framework and training program for teachers, students and school communities.

Our Vision

We are committed to empowering educators to create and sustain caring, compassionate classrooms, schools and communities in which they and their students feel seen, cared for and supported. We believe this is critical to sustaining an equitable, inclusive and compassionate education system that prepares students to be ethically engaged, caring citizens.

Our Approach

We know that the best learning happens when students and teachers feel safe and connected. Our programs aim to nurture healthy, trusting and caring relationships among members of the school community.

Sustainable Compassionate Education is not another curriculum or a one-size-fits-all method. Instead we offer a flexible framework designed to support and empower teachers, administrators, parents, support staff and students to become more fully, compassionately present to themselves, their colleagues and those they serve. We also aim to provide communities with the knowledge, practices and tools necessary to foster and sustain this work in culturally and ecologically sensitive ways.

Learn more about Sustainable Compassion Training.

Our Programs

Our programs recognize and honor the range of educators' experience with this work.  There are multiple entry-points into our programs in order to meet the needs of educators' varying levels of familiarity and experience with practices of care and compassion. 

Our Faculty

The Sustainable Compassionate Schools program faculty were also faculty for Mind and Life’s Call to Care education initiative. The program faculty for SCS are grateful for the generous investment made by Mind and Life to this growing movement to transform our educational systems into sustainably caring communities.

Chrissy Colon Bradt, MS.Ed. is the Education Director at Courage of Care and a lead contributor to Mind and Life's Call to Care program for teachers and students. Chrissy has over 10 years of experience teaching humanities at the middle school level in New York City, Miami and Massachusetts. She also has served as an education consultant designing interdisciplinary, humanities middle school curricula for several charter schools in the northeast.

Brooke D. Lavelle, PhD is the Co-Founder and President of the Courage of Care Coalition. She is also Senior Education Consultant to Mind & Life's Ethics, Education, and Human Development Initiative and a co-developer of the Call to Care program for teachers and students. Brooke has experience designing and adapting compassion-focused curricula for children, adolescents and school teachers. She also currently co-leads the annual Summer Institute for Educators at the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.

Robbie Murphy, MS.Ed is a Supervising Teacher at the Smith College Campus School and has taught elementary school in both public and private settings for over 20 years. Robbie particularly loves her work with seven- and eight-year-olds and delights in writing about and discovering more about children as they enter “the age of reason.” She embraces her role as teacher researcher, focusing especially on issues of social justice and the environment. 

Pamela Seigle, MS.Ed is the Executive Director of Courage & Renewal Northeast and co-leads the Leading Together Initiative, a program that brings teams of principals and educator-leaders together to experience and learn reflective and mindfulness practices and to build relational trust amongst the adults in their school community. Pamela is also the founder of the Open Circle® Program.