About Ellen
Ms. Ellen McCarty is a mindfulness and education specialist credentialed by the state of California. She also earned additional state authorizations to teach students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and English Learners. Her specialty is making Common Core accessible to students in intervention and special education programs and systematically building students’ social, emotional and academic confidence. Her services are recommended by the Palo Alto Community Advisory Committee for Special Education (www.cacpaloalto.org).
Ellen completed her mindfulness meditation training in Southeast Asia more than 20 years ago and was given permission to teach meditation by a Vipassana master. In Asian culture, the word “master” is a reference to self-mastery only and has nothing to do with controlling others. A Buddhist master has given up all possessions and accepts only donations, serving to preserve ancient wisdom and pass it on gently and only to people who wish to learn it. A similar word might be “maestro,” but this does not accurately capture an Asian master’s lifelong levels of extraordinary discipline and service to others, often maintained in states of extreme poverty rarely seen in the West.
While not a master, Ellen strives to choose work that only helps and does not harm others. Starting in 2011, Ellen started her own business Mindful Youth teaching secular mindfulness and that same year joined Mindful Schools as a senior mindfulness instructor and program manager for in-school programs, where she discovered her ability to reach and teach students placed in ED Special Day classrooms. Since then, she has focused on developing and teaching mindfulness intervention to students of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds struggling with behavioral and emotional regulation, and social inclusion.
After years of accepting mindfulness referrals from Mindful Schools for families with special needs in the San Francisco Bay Area, she decided to make a bigger commitment to understanding her students’ challenges and earned her credential in special education. She has worked as an intervention and education specialist and as a Learning Center teacher at the elementary, middle and high school levels. For five years, from 2018-2022, her social skills programs for middle school students with HFA were sponsored by seed funding Opening Doors PTA. Now custom designed with parents throughout SFBA, Ms. Ellen’s programs are recommended by Stanford Medicine’s Early Support Program for Autism (ESPA) as a resource for families. In addition to social skills development, Ms. Ellen’s tutoring programs in mindfulness meditation, mathematics, and academic writing are designed to help students better prepare for transitions between elementary, middle, high school and college and to support their success across settings.
Ellen earned her graduate and undergraduate degrees in four years at Northwestern University, completing a four-year accelerated master’s program in 1997. After completing her meditation training in Asia, Ellen worked in communications and international tourism and has explored four continents. Ellen completed her preliminary credential work at San José State University in 2017 and her California Clear Instruction Credential in 2021. During the pandemic, her programs for students in the San Francisco Bay Area expanded to include an out-of-state audience. After 11 years as the owner and sole proprietor of Mindful Youth, Ms. Ellen converted her company to an LLC to accommodate more growth and funding opportunities. Academically, she enjoys making Common Core standards in mathematics and ELA accessible to students on special education and English Learner tracks and building students’ confidence in their own abilities, talents and capacity for well-being in this world.
