Supporting Confident, Caring & Resilient Children
EMPOWER creatively integrates science-based movement, mindfulness and social‐emotional learning practices
to help youth reduce stress and develop lifelong health and wellness skills.
With video-based instruction,
just press “play” and go
Supporting Confident, Caring & Resilient Children
EMPOWER creatively integrates science-based movement, mindfulness and social‐emotional learning practices
to help youth reduce stress and develop lifelong health and wellness skills.
With video-based instruction, just press “play” and go
Empower a Culture of Wellness
Complete Curriculum
Online lessons that teach the whole child with engaging brain science videos, “kids follow along” movement and mindfulness videos, teacher‐led SEL activities, and handouts and learning extensions.
Student Ownership
Student-led daily core practices and “brain breaks,” including simple breathing and movement activities, help students release stress, regulate their nervous systems, focus, and build resilience and leadership skills.
Press & De-Stress
Reduce your stress, too, as you learn the science and practice of wellness along with your students. Bonus videos support your growth with background information, activity demonstrations and classroom management tips.
Professional Development
Staff trainings, coaching and online graduate courses are available for implementation support and to provide career advancement with college credits, CEUs, PDUs and clock hours.
Integrating Science, Movement, & Mindfulness to Educate & Inspire
Build Relationships
Students will love to watch our three‐ to seven‐minute “Let’s Explore” brain science videos, featuring the engaging neuroscience instructor Mandy B and her adorable dog Junebug. Mandy uses her animation, music and art to explain how our brains and bodies work, and the importance of movement, mindfulness and social connection in helping us to reduce stress, support learning and relationships, and stay physically healthy.
Through the emotional connection to Mandy and Junebug, pacing, art and music, the brain science videos not only teach how the nervous system regulates itself, but allow students to actually experience regulation, attunement, focus and relaxation.
Move to Learn
These brain science videos are a key part of each of the 10 provided integrated lesson plans where they are paired with a four‐ to seven-minute Kids Follow Along videos. These Follow Along videos include both a movement and mindfulness activity that reinforces the brain science lesson.
The brain science, movement and relaxation/mindfulness videos can also be used separately from the lesson plans to provide a quick activity to meet the needs of your students.
Modeling Diversity
The simplicity, pacing and music of these videos is specifically designed to help students regulate, focus and connect. Imagery of diverse youth representing various cultures and abilities provides additional motivation to participate and develop lifelong wellness habits.
Peer Leadership
The movement and mindfulness activities can be used anytime by playing the “Kids Follow Along” videos. Moreover, once students have practiced the movement sequences, they are encouraged to lead them, thus providing additional motivation, peer support and reinforcement.
Integrating Science, Movement, & Mindfulness to Educate & Inspire
Build Relationships
Students will love to watch our three‐ to seven‐minute “Let’s Explore” brain science videos, featuring the engaging neuroscience instructor Mandy B and her adorable dog Junebug.
Mandy uses her animation, music and art to explain how our brains and bodies work, and the importance of movement, mindfulness and social connection in helping us to reduce stress, support learning and relationships, and stay physically healthy.
Through the emotional connection to Mandy and Junebug, pacing, art and music, the brain science videos not only teach how the nervous system regulates itself, but allow students to actually experience regulation, attunement, focus and relaxation.
Move to Learn
These brain science videos are a key part of each of the 10 provided integrated lesson plans where they are paired with a four‐ to seven-minute Kids Follow Along video. These Follow Along videos include both a movement and mindfulness activity that reinforces the brain science lesson.
The brain science, movement and relaxation/mindfulness videos can also be used separately from the lesson plans to provide a quick activity to meet the needs of your students.
Modeling Diversity
The simplicity, pacing and music of these videos is specifically designed to help students regulate, focus and connect. Imagery of diverse youth representing various cultures and abilities provides additional motivation to participate and develop lifelong wellness habits.
Peer Leadership
The movement and mindfulness activities can be used anytime by playing the “Kids Follow Along” videos. Moreover, once students have practiced the movement sequences, they are encouraged to lead them, thus providing additional motivation, peer support and reinforcement.
Reducing Teacher Stress
Teachers report that these movement sequences and mindfulness activities also reduce their stress, because they reduce student behavior issues and actually “buy” instructional time by helping students regulate, focus and build supportive and productive classroom communities. In addition, they also meet various education standards and physical activity recommendations.
Elegantly Designed Lesson Plans & Curriculum Scaffolding
Empower lesson plans are elegantly designed to synergistically provide K-4 learners with cognitive instruction, physical movement, mindfulness practices and social-emotional learning— In as little as 15 minutes.
Lesson plans also include opportunities for student leadership, as well as include learning extensions such as coloring sheets, vocabulary cards, and discussion prompts for engaging, immersive, and differentiated learning.
Both the brain science concepts and their related movement practices elegantly scaffold, with each new lesson building upon and reinforcing prior knowledge and abilities.
Empower Curriculum
- Daily Breathing and Mindfulness Practices
- Living Systems: The Amazing Human Nervous System
- Our Inner Hero: The Sympathetic Nervous System
- Nervous System Time Travel
- The Wonders of Rest: The Parasympathetic Nervous System
- Cells!
- The Incredible Human Brain
- What Is the Mind?
- The Mind & The Brain
- Social Animals
- Friends, Family, Community: Our Social Selves
- What is Mindfulness?
Teachers need no prior knowledge of subject material or wellness practices to successfully deliver and participate in the lessons. Yet, each lesson plan includes professional development videos from college-accredited courses to provide teachers with the opportunity to build their skills and knowledge.
Professional Development Materials & Graduate Credit
Deepen your learning with 10 free training videos from college-accredited courses with school wellness pioneers Lynea and Jim Gillen. These include background information, activity demonstrations, classroom management tips, and additional games and activities that your students will love. Completion of these videos along with a one-day staff training qualifies for 1-3 semester-level, graduate credits.
Invest in Student & Staff Health
$60 for Lifetime Access.
Contact us for more information on our school-wide pricing.
Research Supported… Teacher & Student Accepted
Empower is based on the award‐winning and research‐supported Yoga Calm® curriculum and the program developers’ experience in training over 20,000 teachers, counselors and therapists since 2005. Research on this curriculum shows that it
- Reduces stress and improves self‐regulation, attention
and on‐task behavior. - Decreases behavioral referrals and improves behavior,
both in the classroom and outside of school. - Improves feelings of community.
- Promotes physical activity and self‐confidence.
- Has a high level of acceptance and fidelity by teachers and extensive student usage of stress reduction techniques in their daily lives (over 70%).
Overall, Empower mitigates stress, supports learning, and builds a resilient, healthy and compassionate school community.
Your Empower Team
Manda Bryn Severin is a former instructor of psychology at Southern Oregon University (SOU) where she created unique curricula that infused art, music, and comedy into courses such as Behavioral Neuroscience and Physiological Psychology. Prior to SOU, Manda spent five years tutoring, mentoring, and later instructing college students with learning disabilities. Music from her band The Meriwethers and her original art and animation are used extensively throughout the Empower program.
Lynea Gillen, LPC, and Jim Gillen, ERYT500, are award-winning authors and innovators in the field of wellness education for youth. From its development in a behavior classroom in a rural Oregon elementary school 20 years ago, their Yoga Calm program is now used by tens of thousands of teachers and therapists around the world. For over 45 years, Lynea has supported all ages of learners as an elementary school teacher, counselor and college professor. Jim has been teaching yoga and mindfulness for over 21 years and has extensive experience in teaching adaptive sports and in the development of science-based educational programs with the National Science Foundation.
Comprehensive, Flexible & Sustainable Professional Development & Support
In addition to the 30 student and staff training videos that are included with the basic program, several additional levels of professional development and support services are available:
- In‐person staff trainings led by our national trainers
- Graduate‐level online courses on program curriculum (An Integrated Approach to Wellness 1‐3)
- Ongoing support with monthly teleconferences with our national Empower trainers and other schools implementing Empower
Graduate-level college credit, CEUs, PDUs and clock hours are available with all Empower professional development trainings.
For more information on how Empower can support your school: