Stacey Mandel

Stacey is particularly passionate about sharing mindfulness skills with vulnerable individuals who are suffering the most. Most recently, she worked for one year as a mindfulness intervention specialist for teens with intense behavioral and emotional needs in special education. She spent four years as the mindfulness specialist on a project called ESEL designed to empower students and help schools ameliorate punitive practices; that work is featured in the documentary film “Divided Attention: When the Children Who Need the Most Receive the Least”. Currently, Stacey offers various services through BIG Mindfulness & Meditation, and facilitates professional development for organizations focused on trauma awareness, resiliency and best practices for educators and frontline workers.

Possessing an eclectic training background, Stacey is a certified professional mindfulness teacher (CMT-P) with the International Mindfulness Teachers Association, and a certified “Trauma-Competent Professional” with Lakeside Global Institute. Previously, Stacey spent 14 years teaching grades K-8 in CA, NJ and PA, and four years as a literacy instructional coach and professional developer for Children’s Literacy Initiative.  She holds a Master’s degree in Social Foundations of Education from California State University - Los Angeles, and a BFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

Stacey volunteers as a mindfulness teacher with youth offenders in adult prison, as a Prison Monitor for PA Prison Society, and as a Pardon Coach for Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity.  She serves on the Board of CMP Radio Foundation, as a core member of Alliance for Philadelphia Public Schools and as the co-coordinator of the Mindfulness and Social Change Network. She loves graffiti, walking errands, bacon, creating art, her daughter’s original music, working out, travel and nurturing people with aromatherapy and Reiki.