Certification Program for Compassionate Systems Master Practitioners

CENTER PROGRAMS

Certification Program for Compassionate Systems
Master Practitioners

Class of 2026-2027

A year-long blended program consisting of monthly virtual convenings and a one-week in-person retreat in Canada.
June 22, 2026 to July 12, 2027
Facilitated by Mette Boell & Peter Senge

Creatively engage in the science and practice of human and planetary flourishing

Perhaps the most radical act in our time is to live from a space of love and connection, to thrive and permit ourselves to enjoy life. This program is an invitation to explore how to be hopeful for a future of human and planetary flourishing, even when global structures are seemingly crumbling around us, our climate destabilizes and totalitarian worldviews are yet again on the rise - all contributing to immense suffering, distress and disconnect, locally and globally. From a systems awareness perspective, we engage with the inherited worldview - the structures and belief systems of the past couple of centuries, where well-educated people in positions of governance and authority have made decisions that have led to the outcomes we are struggling with in the world today. Outcomes of climate change, skyrocketing extinction rates, overpopulation, immense inequity, and a global pandemic of stress, depression, anxiety, loneliness, and suicide. Decisions that have led to a poly-crisis of unfathomable proportions that we are unequipped to grasp, let alone deal with. And ALL of us have internalized these structures, we live these breakdowns every day - it’s the water we swim in - and it is almost impossible to individually create the changes that are needed to reorient and live into a future of flourishing.

For us, it has always been clear that something needs to change in education if we are to shape different outcomes for our future. Humans need different tools, strategies and critical reflective skills, as well as the cohesive collaborative competencies that arise when we understand ourselves as profoundly interconnected, not just as humans but as a living species on Planet Earth. And increasingly, over the past couple of years it has become crystal clear that systems change in education cannot come from education alone. To us, the purpose of society is to grow healthy human beings in regenerative and flourishing human- and planetary fields.

Therefore, we invite you to come along on this journey to explore and develop strategies for cross-sector compassionate systems change that holds the wellbeing of our children at the heart of our societies. This vision animates the growing compassionate systems change community that is connecting educators, students and non-educators around the world.

Interestingly, from a material and physical health perspective, globally we have never been better off in recorded times. We live longer, and more people have access to education. There is less hunger and poverty globally and we have made remarkable discoveries in these past centuries improving living conditions in such a variety of ways that it is hard to imagine. However, this progress is external and physical, relating primarily to artifacts. It seems the poor state of our inner world, our personal capacity for well-being and sense of purpose and meaning in life, along with the devastating consequences in our natural world, are unintended side effects of our fast-paced, run-rampant lifestyles in global society. We seem to lack nuances of what it means to live in a good way: flourishing, joyously connected, and with an integral sense of belonging. Everything and everyone we have ever loved is right here on our beautiful planet, and our destructive relationship to the natural world seems mirrored in the self-destructive relationship to our inner world. These are the conditions children grow up with in our time.

We are grateful to partner with a growing, impressive, and diverse group of people around the world who feel deeply that living in the ways of compassionate systems change carries promises of better futures for ourselves, our children, and those who are to come.

For over a decade, we have been working with a global community of educational innovators, thought leaders and international scientists to develop and test a new synthesis of head, heart, and hand, called the “Compassionate Systems Framework,” in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Systems Awareness Lab.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVES

The Compassionate Systems Masters Practitioners program is a certification for those who are willing and able to take the lead on these changes in their local settings. The certification program is designed to help Master Practitioners support and enable compassionate systems change through an eclectic collection of tools, practices, and approaches that can help people reorient and choose a different way of showing up and being in relationship with themselves, other people, and the world. The framework can increase people’s well-being, their sense of purpose and belonging, their critical and analytical reflective capacities, and their overall self-awareness and commitment to caring about themselves and others. This stance, along with the diverse tools and practices synthesized from fields like the science of learning and development, organizational learning, neuroscience and contemplative neuroscience, contemplative cultivation, social-emotional learning, evolutionary biology, systems dynamics, and the budding methodologies of living systems change, empowers people to take steps towards systems change in the spaces they inhabit.

PROGRAM STUCTURE

Program Structure

The certification program is a one-year blended learning design organized around:

Module 1, facilitated by Dr. Mette Miriam Boell, Dr. Peter Senge and the Certification Program team (virtual)
A 2-day workshop with Peter Senge on the principles of organizational learning and systems dynamics (virtual)
Module 2, Facilitated by Dr. Mette Miriam Boell and Un-Coach Roger Burton (in person)
Module 3, facilitated by Dr. Mette Miriam Boell and Dr. Peter Senge with the Center team and a broad group of reviewers
Monthly virtual learning community calls (featuring guest speakers and peer learning)
Contemplative training calls to support practitioners in the development of their own contemplative practice
A buddy system of peer support
An application project

Final Certificate graduation is based on assessing evidence of work and learning developed during the process, including the application project and evidence of coaching others. Working with a group of program faculty and outside faculty (e.g., faculty and advisors from major universities and organizations), there will be joint determination if a practitioner is qualified to be certificated as a Compassionate Systems Master Practitioner or if further work is needed.

The program is available for individuals who are alumni of Compassionate Systems introductory “Foundations I” workshops and/or who participated in the 5-session series of Master Classes over the Summer of 2025. Each participant is expected to have been engaged in using the tools and approaches of the framework and is now interested in being able to help others along the same journey. We prioritize those who attend with a team: one or more colleagues from a site or hub in the budding Compassionate Systems global community. This will enable a smoother transition between the capacity-building core of the program and practical application. In addition, the buddy system will connect participants across sites and help to both support each participant and to strengthen the overall practitioner community.

As part of the process, each participant will design an application project that integrates the Compassionate Systems tools and practices into his/her own organization and unique educational context. We recommend that, as far as possible, these projects be part of the participant’s normal work requirements rather than something that is an “add on” and could become extraneous.

Those who become certified at the end of the year-long program may be invited on occasion to support various Compassionate Systems efforts (e.g. mentoring future cohort members, co-facilitating introductory workshops with Center staff, writing short articles on their experiences integrating Compassionate Systems within their educational settings, etc.). Such efforts keep our practitioners connected and grow our communities of practice, as we support each other globally in our systems change work.

DATES & LOCATIONS

WEEK-LONG MODULE CONVENINGS

There will be three week-long module workshop convenings held over the course of the program year. Modules 1 and 3 will be held virtually; Module 2 will be a retreat convening in-person. Location | Brew Creek, British Columbia, Canada.

Module 1: Systems Awareness | Virtual | June 22-26, 2026, 9:00 AM - 1:30 PM ET each day
Module 2: Contemplative Systems Awareness and Compassionate Integrity | In-person | Brew Creek, British Columbia, Canada| January 24-29, 2027 | Full day each day
Module 3: Certification & Graduation | Virtual | July 12-16, 2027, 8:30 AM-6:00 PM ET each day
A 2-day workshop with Peter Senge on the principles of organizational learning and systems dynamics | Virtual | December 10 - 11, 2026 | 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT/EST

VIRTUAL LEARNING COMMUNITY CALLS

Our learning community will meet regularly between week-long modules to learn from guest faculty, Center staff and one another. Three-hour Virtual Learning Community Calls will be held monthly via Zoom.

Time: 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM EDT/EST
Dates: Fridays - 2026: July 10, August 21, September 18, October 23, November 20. 2027: February 19, March 19, April 23, May 14, June 11

VIRTUAL CONTEMPLATIVE TRAININGS

To support practitioners in developing their contemplative practice, a series of one-hour virtual Contemplative Trainings will be held monthly via Zoom.

Time: 9 AM - 10 AM EDT/EST
Dates: Wednesdays - 2026: July 22, August 26, September 30, November 4, December 2. 2027: January 6, February 10

PARTICIPANT COMMITMENTS & BENEFITS

Participants agree to:

Be present at all three week-long module convenings and the 2-day virtual workshop in full.
Be present at the monthly Virtual Learning Community Calls and the monthly Virtual Contemplative Training Calls.
Develop and maintain a regular contemplative practice. This may take many forms but should integrate regular and disciplined methods to observe one’s mental state, flow of thought and emotion. To this end, agree to be present at the Virtual Contemplative Trainings and utilize the recorded guided meditations available to your cohort.
Schedule and conduct regular check-ins with your peer buddy as well as Certified Master Practitioners from prior cohorts who are volunteering as learning partners.
Develop and implement an application project within your organization and/or site. Each participant will define his/her own unique project subject to approval by program faculty. Projects should be relevant and connected to the strategic priorities in practitioners’ settings, and practical and “doable,” aligned to how their work is naturally unfolding rather than an “add-on” to their normal daily responsibilities.
Prepare a body of work via a project e-portfolio that you maintain with regularity over the course of the program year to demonstrate your project goals, implementation/ outcomes as well as insights/learnings along the way. Each practitioner will be given access and training to our e-portfolio software plus technical support. Towards the final half of the program, each practitioner will be assigned a reviewer, program faculty who assesses the application project via the e-portfolio to determine certification.

Participants will receive:

An overview of the scientific underpinnings of the framework, including latest findings in neuroscience, science of learning and development, cognitive and emotional psychology, science of well-being, and advances in applied system dynamics and the science of systems change.
Introduction to theory and practice of personal mastery, organizational learning, and the 17 world sustainable development goals.
Direct experience with facilitation and holding space for a generative social field to unfold.
When ready, opportunities to co-host and co-facilitate introductory workshops in Compassionate Systems around the world, working with other members of the cohort.
A meditation program developed specifically for the Compassionate Systems Framework including guided mindfulness, compassion and well-being meditations.
Further training in systems mapping and system dynamics.
Support from Center program staff with ideas for developing and implementing your application project, as well as technical support with the project e-portfolio software. Support will also be provided by Certified Master Practitioners who have previously graduated from the program and are volunteering as learning partners.
Pending successful outcome of a formal assessment by a reviewer, each master practitioner-in-training will become a Certified Master Practitioner, receiving a certificate of completion from the Center for Systems Awareness that certifies he/she has completed a year-long program to become a Compassionate Systems Master Practitioner.

FACULTY & STAFF

Mette Miriam Boell • Lead Facilitator
Co-founder Center for Systems Awareness, MIT Research Scientist and Co-Founder & Research Director MIT Systems Awareness Lab

Peter M. Senge • Lead Facilitator
Co-founder Center for Systems Awareness, MIT Senior Lecturer and Co-Founder MIT Systems Awareness Lab

Miho Kito • Program Director

Roger Burton • Program Coach

Jane Drake • Learning Partner, e-Portfolio Partner

Guest Faculty (Previous guest engagements)

Andrew Jones • Co-Founder and Co-Director of Climate Interactive

Kim Schonert-Reichl • NoVo Foundation Endowed Chair in Social and Emotional Learning and Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Dan Siegel • Clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, the founding co-director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA, Executive Director of the Mindsight Institute

Jean Clinton • Clinical Professor McMaster University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences

Mark Greenberg • Professor of Human Development and Psychology

Michael Fullan • The former Dean of the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Professor Emeritus of the University of Toronto

Paul Reville • The Francis Keppel Professor of Practice of Educational Policy and Administration at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Founding director of HGSE’s Education Redesign Lab.

Tyralynn Frazier • Head Scientist of The Compassion Lab at Emory University’s Center for Contemplative Science and Compassion-Based Ethics

+ many more (Subject to change)

COST & PRACTICALITIES

Eligibility
The program is prioritized for alumni of the Center’s introductory workshops, particularly in locales where there are existing Compassionate Systems teams, hubs or sites. Members of the community who have completed a local equivalent of an introductory workshop led by a Master Practitioner and have attended the Master Class series are also considered.

* Early Bird Discount
We’re offering an early bird registration discount of $2,500, bringing the total to $12,500 if you register by March 31. Don’t miss this opportunity!

Tuition
$15,000 per participant. Limited scholarship options available; students (full-time with no major income) eligible for 50% discount.

Other Cost
Participants are responsible for the costs of travel, accommodations, and meals for Module 2 in-person retreat. The final cost will be announced during the program.
Location: The Brew Creek Centre, Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.

(*Update: The estimated cost for Module 2 will be announced once determined, which covers accommodations, meals, and taxes. The final cost will be confirmed once details are finalized.)

Application Deadline
May 15, 2026

Application deadline: May 15, 2026
(Early Bird: March 31, 2026)

APPLICATION

BROCHURE

If you have any questions, please email Miho Kito at
mkito@systemsawareness.org

Please note that only those who have previously taken our Compassionate Systems Introductory workshop are eligible to apply. Please know that submitting an application does NOT secure anyone a seat as we will prioritize those who come in teams and where there is already work/efforts going on in those local communities.

CENTER for SYSTEMS AWARENESS

CENTER PROGRAMS