UCSF Osher Center Key Team Members:
Selena Chan, DO|Collaborator | Integrative Psychiatrist, Associate Director of Clinical Programs
Project Description: Mindful HEART, is an innovative five-week public course offered through the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Osher Center clinic and designed for individuals in the recovery stages of trauma. The program’s development—from conceptualization to delivery— has been shaped by the combined expertise of a somatic experiencing practitioner and an integrative psychiatrist, as well as feedback from UCSF Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction class participants, who highlighted the need for greater capacity at the Osher Center for those navigating trauma recovery. The proposed IHE project proposal aims to evaluate the Mindful HEART program through feedback from Mindful HEART class participants.
Feasibility: The first Mindful HEART course offering (MH-1) is currently running May-June 2025, and a second iteration of Mindful HEART (MH-2) is planned for September-October 2025. The course instructor, Nichole Proffit, will invite 10 MH-1 students to provide course feedback through individual interviews, informing the development of the second course offering. The program lead, Dr. Kennedy Blevins, will lead the evaluation by conducting interviews and asking questions via questionnaires to elicit feedback from past participants. For adaptive refinement of the Mindful HEART program, it is necessary to evaluate more than learner satisfaction and other typical factors assessed in program evaluation. This evaluation will focus not only on class participants’ learning outcomes on key Mindful HEART objectives, but also their application of these principles in daily life. Lastly, strategies and tools developed for the evaluation of Mindful HEART will be made available to inform the formal evaluation of other Osher Center public classes.
Significance: The Kirkpatrick model is an effective framework for evaluating learning outcomes in training settings (Kirkpatrick, 1998). This framework is appropriate for this application since Mindful HEART aims to teach skills for those in trauma recovery. The Kirkpatrick model includes four levels: (1) reaction, which measures participants’ immediate feedback and satisfaction; (2) learning, which assesses the extent to which participants gained knowledge and skills; (3) behavior, which evaluates whether participants are applying their learned knowledge and skills in their work; and (4) results which determines the impact of the training on organizational goals, outcomes, and effectiveness. Levels 1 (reaction) and 2 (learning) will be addressed by inviting participants from MH-1 to participate in interviews following completion of the MH-1 course. These interviews will assess the impression of the course (reaction), which is typically evaluated by the Osher Center following public classes, but will also go to the next level of understanding what individuals learned from the Mindful HEART program (learning), including suggestions for how the program could be improved to support delivery and learning. Next, the Mindful HEART program will be refined based on MH-1 participant feedback and incorporated for MH-2. Those enrolled in MH2 will be invited to complete survey questions before the beginning of the MH-2 course and after the completion of the MH2 course to assess what skills individuals gained (learning) and will be invited to participate in post-course interviews two weeks after MH-2 to understand whether individuals are applying their skills following the Mindful HEART course (behavior). Evaluation and refinement of the Mindful HEART program will support the class's future offerings and create lasting protocols for Osher public class evaluation in an effort to improve capacity for the UCSF Osher Center to support integrative health equity (results).
Innovation: The proposed project aligns with this call’s goal of improving integrative health equity by addressing the need for a program specifically focused on those in trauma recovery at the UCSF Osher Center. Seventy percent of adults globally report at least one trauma experience (Benjet et al., 2016). Typically, mindfulness-based programs focus on re-establishing a sense of safety following trauma (Herman, 1992, Chapter 8). However, there is a need for programs focused on trauma recovery (Kelly & Garland, 2017) that integrate psychotherapeutic and mindfulness approaches (Williston et al., 2021). The Mindful HEART program taps directly into this need, focusing on mindful and somatic-based approaches to trauma recovery. Further, while many course-based evaluations stop at level 1 or 2 of the Kirkpatrick model (Holtschneider & Park, 2019), this project will address all four levels of program evaluation to improve the Mindful HEART program and ensure this program evaluation has a lasting impact. While delivery of the program is funded through class tuition, support for further refinement and evaluation of Mindful HEART is needed to ensure the program has far-reaching benefits for the Osher Center.
Impact: The proposed project contributes to the Osher Center’s broader evidence-informed, trauma-recovery efforts while building professional and personal communities of wellbeing and creating infrastructure to improve integrative health equity at the UCSF Osher Center. This effort can help assess potential pathways for clinical integration, instructor training, and future research across Osher Center programs.
Collaboration: This project fosters collaboration across the clinic, education, research, and administration programs and is strengthened by the team’s diverse integrative health equity expertise, spanning educational evaluation, experiential group programming, and direct care of individuals in trauma recovery. December 2025 – February 2026
Nichole, Selena, and Kennedy will share participant insights from the program evaluation with the overall UCSF Osher Center community (e.g., at case conference and/or other internal Osher meetings).
Benjet, C., Bromet, E., Karam, E. G., Kessler, R. C., McLaughlin, K. A., Ruscio, A. M., Shahly, V., Stein, D. J., Petukhova, M., Hill, E., Alonso, J., Atwoli, L., Bunting, B., Bruffaerts, R., Caldas-de-Almeida, J. M., de Girolamo, G., Florescu, S., Gureje, O., Huang, Y., Lepine, J. P., … Koenen, K. C. (2016). The epidemiology of traumatic event exposure worldwide: results from the World Mental Health Survey Consortium. Psychological medicine, 46(2), 327–343. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291715001981
Herman, J. L. (1992). Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. Basic Books.
Holtschneider, M. E., & Park, C. W. (2019). Simulation and Advanced Practice Registered Nurses: Opportunities to Enhance Interprofessional Collaboration. AACN advanced critical care, 30(3), 269–273. https://doi.org/10.4037/aacnacc2019157
Kelly, A., & Garland, E. L. (2016). Trauma-Informed Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Female Survivors of Interpersonal Violence: Results From a Stage I RCT. Journal of clinical psychology, 72(4), 311–328. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.22273
Williston, S. K., Grossman, D., Mori, D. L., & Niles, B. L. (2021). Mindfulness interventions in the treatment of posttraumatic stress disorder. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 52(1), 46. https://doi.org/10.1037/pro0000363
Comments
This is sounds like a great
This is sounds like a great project to diversify, extend, and enhance offerings at Osher for important populations!
Curious if the Mindful HEART program is structured to have similar groups (e.g., women, men, by race/ethnicity, age, etc.) in class with each other, or is it more that folks are in recovery from trauma? Also, would the funding requested through this grant be aimed at running a second course of Mindful HEART, or be focused on conducting a mixed methods evaluation of the pilot course that's running now to inform the second and/or future iteration(s) of Mindful HEART?
Thank you Dorothy for your
Thank you Dorothy for your support and thoughtful question. The later of your comment is our plan -- to use funding to conduct a mixed methods evaluation of the Mindful HEART program. Participants from the pilot program will be invited to participate in focus groups, which will inform the next and future itterations of the Mindful HEART program. Further program evaluation will be coducted on the second iteration of the Mindful HEART program with existing feedback in mind.
The Mindful HEART program was created to be open access for those self-identified trauma recovery based on Osher MBSR and other public class participant feedback stating a need for this type of programing. We will definitely consider participants' thoughts and feelings around specitic affinity groups during the evaluation stage.
From Perry Lang:The topic of
From Perry Lang:
The topic of trauma is timely, especially in this era of political shifting. I would need to know more about the 5-week Mindful Heart course and whether it discusses individual traumas and institutional or systems trauma. Moreover, I don’t know if the course explores the link between individual and institutional traumas; trauma coping verses trauma recovery.
Dear Perry, thank you for
Dear Perry, thank you for your question. Individuals in the Mindful HEART program self-identify whether they have experienced physical or emotional trauma, however, this is not limited to non-institutionalized trauma. Rather, the program focuses on processing the impact of trauma whether individual or institutional. The program evaluation will help us address this important nuance in trauma experiences by working with those specifically in trauma recovery to integrate and process their trauma experience(s) rather than cope. However, improved coping may be a byproduct of the program that we can investigate during our program evaluation.
Dear Perry, I also wanted to
Dear Perry, I also wanted to add that we recognize that institutional barriers exist and contribute to trauma. In that vein, access to the course is free for those who are supported by the community care fund, which supports individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds in the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in classes and treatment at the Osher Center.
The instructor, Nichole, also has 1 on 1 private interviews before the course to determine if additional professional mental health support is needed for particpant's self-identified trauma. In this way, this course is a complement to professional health care by allowing for the opportunity to address trauma recovery as a team.
Love the innovation to
Love the innovation to increase access for trauma care, this addresses a long-standing gap in care. Is this course covered by insurance or a paid course?
Thank you for the support.
Thank you for the support. Great question! The class is funded by tuition. Those interested in class participation are encouraged to apply for the Community Care Fund (CCF). The public classes only scholarship covers class tuition even if individuals are not being seen by a clinician and those who have been recently seen by the clinic can apply to the CCF financial assistance program so long as they have clinican oversight. Both of these pathways are avenues eligible participants can use to get support to cover the cost of the Mindful HEART course.