Voices Blog
Submission Guidelines
Our mission revolves around collaboration and mentorship, and we are always looking for new ways to share the expertise, gifts, and experiences of our members. We are excited to add another component to our newsletter and website called COSEM Voices.
COSEM Voices is a place for mindful educators and leaders who explore, personally practice, and create an inclusive culture of well-being in our schools. Our COSEM Community Members who are engaged in advocating and developing embodied sustainable systems of care through Mindfulness-Based SEL are encouraged to share their experiences, reflections and connections about mindfulness in schools that need to be uplifted.
COSEM's Statement on Secularity
As a professional body for supporting mindfulness in education, we want to share that it is essential to maintain secularity in schools, especially public schools. Please note that different practices are accessible in different environments so we offer a variety of learning opportunities that may or may not be in alignment with your school. The types of practices that are acceptable in different regions vary; know your policy, setting, and community to what would be accessible and acceptable.
Cultivating Communities of Care
As an organization, we cultivate supportive communities of care through best practices within mindfulness to nurture the well-being and mental health of our learning communities. When submitting your Voices article, please be sure that your submission takes care in sharing from a trauma-informed and culturally affirming lens so that all of our members and readers are encouraged, inspired, and belong.
Who Reads Our Content
COSEM Voices is distributed to newsletter subscribers across the globe including educators, counselors, parents, and people who believe that mindfulness - and what it implies - holds the promise of a better way forward for our children and our schools.
What We Publish
Articles that work best for the newsletter are generally around 700-1000 words. They are rich with personal experience and reflection, and they also make a specific argument about an aspect of mindfulness in schools that people need to hear. We do not shy away from discomfort, and even welcome pieces that discuss topics that few dare to explore. Your article should be steeped in current best practices, but what we really want is for you to distill the central idea, technique, strategy, or position that is central to your own understanding and that will expand people’s thinking or capacity.
COSEM aims in its posts, newsletters, and other publications to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of mindfulness-based SEL. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by COSEM, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified. COSEM reserves the right to remove any comments from the site.
COSEM Voices does not adhere to a strict content calendar; a wide variety of topics are featured throughout the year, highlighting community members’ reflections about mindfulness-based SEL, in addition to posts that highlight opportunities, resources, and events.
Certain topics may be given increased attention at particular times of the year, such as the following:
2024
June: Know Yourself
July: Rest and Recharge
August & September: Beginning of the School Year Events - No Submissions Published
October - Growing Seeds of Community
November -Fostering Seeds of Emotional Regulation
December - Watering Seeds of Mindful Communication
2025
January - Nurturing Seeds of Resilience
February - Tending to Seeds of Stress
March - Cultivating Seeds of Presence
April - Sowing Seeds of Mindful Leadership
May - Harvesting Seeds of Work-Life Integration
June - Cultivating Seeds of Gratitude
Ready To Submit?
Please send us your piece (connection@educatingmindfully.org) with the subject line “Voices Submission:________(your article title)” and we will respond as soon as we are able.
Editorial Process
COSEM Operational Team Members review all pieces submitted for consideration, and will try when possible to let authors know within a month whether or not a submission has been accepted for publication.
All pieces chosen for publication will be copyedited; occasionally a post may be returned to the author for clarification or revision.
COSEM Team Members reserve the right to make editorial changes in any piece accepted for publication to enhance clarity, conciseness, or style. The editors’ decisions are final.
Submissions are selected for publication on the basis of a variety of criteria, including relevance, clarity, and alignment to the mission and work of COSEM. Sometimes, to accommodate the blog schedule, a post may be accepted but scheduled for publication later in the year. We’ll do our best to keep authors informed as to the status of submissions, but authors are always welcome to email for an update on a submission.