Mindful launches youth meditation hub for kids, teens and young adults

Mindful’s new youth meditation hub is built around a simple choice: find the practice that fits the moment, whether that means pre-exam anxiety, bedtime stress or emotional overload after a long school day. The collection is aimed at kids, teens and young adults, with parents, educators and caregivers also in mind, and it packages guided meditations as a practical tool rather than a one-size-fits-all wellness fix.

That practical framing lands in a bleak public-health moment. The CDC says adolescent mental health in the United States was already worsening before COVID-19, and its 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey found about 40% of high school students felt persistent sadness or hopelessness. More than a quarter of U.S. adolescents reported poor mental health, 20% seriously considered suicide and about 10% attempted suicide. The U.S. Surgeon General has also warned that social media can pose risks to youth mental health and has called for a multifaceted response from families, schools, tech companies, researchers and policymakers. Globally, UNICEF says adolescence is a critical period for protecting mental health, while the World Health Organization says one in seven people ages 10 to 19 lives with a mental disorder.

The hub is tied to WholeSchool Mindfulness, a nonprofit that says it is co-creating an education system that advances well-being, community and justice through mindfulness. WholeSchool defines a Mindfulness Director as a school or district staff member who integrates mindfulness practices within the community, and its model treats that role as permanent rather than temporary. The idea is not to drop in a one-off program, but to build a tailored, school-based practice that fits the needs of a specific community. Mindful reported in 2024 that WholeSchool had supported the hiring of 17 mindfulness directors, with plans to add 13 more in fall 2024. In 2025, WholeSchool also received a grant from Unlikely Collaborators to expand Mindfulness Directors to additional schools and a university.

Erica Marcus brings that youth-centered approach into the new hub. Marcus has worked with young people in a wilderness youth therapy setting in Utah, at a Washington, D.C. charter school and in Maine schools, and she founded Wise Minds. Big Hearts. in 2015. That background matters here because the collection is designed for young people who may be skeptical, self-conscious or simply too overwhelmed for broad advice to land.

The clearest idea in the hub is also the most useful one: if a young person needs a two-minute reset before a quiz, a wind-down before sleep or a steadier landing after a rough afternoon, the right meditation is the one that matches the moment.