The mother of a teenager who was murdered says she was inspired by the Welsh education system to call for lessons in mindfulness to be taught to all schoolchildren. Brianna Ghey's mother Esther told a conference in Bangor, Gwynedd, she relied on the technique, which involves focussing on details of the world around her, to help her with her grief. Brianna, 16, was murdered in a park in Warrington, Cheshire, in February 2023.
About 100 teachers have received training in mindfulness and some schools in Liverpool and Warrington are now teaching it. Esther Ghey wants it to be part of the curriculum everywhere. Speaking at a mindfulness conference held at Bangor University on Monday, Ms Ghey said Wales were “already doing such fantastic work”.
“There's been a change in the curriculum and there's such a focus on mental health and wellbeing,” she said. “That's kind of where I took the inspiration from in the first place. So if we can spread it out across the whole of the UK, the more students that we reach the better.
" She said she first began to use mindfulness about nine years ago, as a mature student, to improve her mental health. "When my daughter was taken from us, my husband and my other daughter would go for walks and it was really helpful to spend that time in nature and to really notice that there was still beauty in the world and it was lovely - sunsets and flowers starting to bloom and blossom. “It was just the ability to take that time away from what was happ.