About
Since 2007, New Leaf Foundation has supported the mental, emotional and physical health of young people by addressing both the negative impacts of stress and its root causes.
Announcement: As New Leaf Foundation navigates the challenges of post-pandemic recovery, our staff, founders, and members have collectively realized that the current strain on various parts of the organization is beyond our capacity to manage. Therefore, we’ve decided to close New Leaf in the coming months. Our priority now is to ensure that the valuable resources we’ve developed continue to benefit the community. Read more…
New Leaf Foundation equipped youth with tools to manage stress positively, reducing its impact on their bodies, minds, and emotions. We also worked to disrupt sources of harm by educating parents and staff in schools and jails about how chronic and traumatic stress is produced, how it might manifest as behaviors labeled as “acting out,” and how to support young people in strengths-based ways.
New Leaf Foundation offered multi-session programs in partnership with community partners including schools, youth service organizations, and youth justice facilities. Our focus was on engaging young people aged 12-20 who faced unequal access to resources and a high potential for stress due to experiences of oppression, violence, neglect, stigmatization, and poverty.
We also offered workshops, training, and events to build leadership, explore the impacts of stress, highlight the benefits of mindfulness, and share our best practices, and provided a free library of resources to make it easy for youth, families, and communities to incorporate mindfulness-based activities into their everyday lives.
Why Mindfulness?
Research shows that mindfulness decreases symptoms of stress, trauma, anxiety, and depression and increases emotional regulation, coping skills, sleep quality, and overall resilience (Source: The Role of Mindfulness in Reducing the Adverse Effects of Childhood Stress and Trauma).
Mindfulness can be done anytime, anywhere… all you need is yourself! Plus, New Leaf’s speciality was offering mindfulness in ways that were simple, inclusive and relatable, so youth from every walk of life could build it into their daily lives.
Our Framework
New Leaf’s methodology applied the philosophy of mindfulness to three main practices: movement, breathing, and awareness. Using all three practices to help regulate the nervous system and build front-brain capacities like perspective, reasoning, decision-making, and communication, allowing people to shift from survival mode to thriving.
Our program model created a strong internal framework for how our sessions are offered. It included activities to build connection within the group, life skills themes, meditation, mindful movement, and strategies for transferring topics and practices to everyday life.
Our core teachings provided a roadmap for youth to develop a stronger connection with themselves and their communities. It created the opportunity to increase mindful awareness, build the capacity to work skillfully with emotions, increase self-esteem, and cultivate wellness on mental, emotional, and physical levels.
Our Approach
New Leaf Foundation was committed to trauma-informed and anti-oppression frameworks in all that we did.
Why? Because mindfulness-based practices cannot promote well-being without being offered in ways that are as inclusive, sensitive, and empowering as possible.
Our Team
Our team is dedicated to supporting young people from a strengths-based perspective. The spectrum of our lived experiences, commitment to social justice, and dedication to ongoing learning supported New Leaf Foundation in striving to create spaces where all youth felt seen, heard, and valued.
Annual Reports
For over 18 years, New Leaf Foundation changed the landscape of how meditative practices could support youth in some of the most under-resourced communities and became a leader in Canada. Learn about the impact we made: