Lorraine M. Hobbs, MA , is founding director of the family programs at the University of California, San Diego Center for Mindfulness. Hobbs is cocreator of the Mindful Self-Compassion for Teens (MSC-T) program, and codeveloper of the MSC-T teacher training pathway. She is a certified teacher of MSC, Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT) and MBSR. She is also codeveloper of A Friend in Me: A Self-Compassion Program for Kids and Their Caregivers, and the Compassion in Parenting Program (CiP). Hobbs is coauthor ofthe book, Teaching Self-Compassion to Teens (Guilford Press 2022). Amy C. Balentine, PhD , has practiced for more than twenty years as a clinical psychologist.

She is founder and director of the Memphis Center for Mindful Living, LLC. She is also a mindfulness teacher at University of California, San Diego's Center for Mindfulness and codeveloper of A Friend in Me: A Self-Compassion program for Kids and their Caregivers. She is founder and director of the Memphis Center for Mindful Living, LLC, where she is a qualified teacher of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). She ispast president of the Memphis Area Psychological Association. Foreword writer Kristin Neff, PhD , is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion more than fifteen years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of Self-Compassion . In conjunction with her colleague Christopher Germer, she developed an empirically supported, eight-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide. Kristin Neff, PhD , is currently associate professor of educational psychology at The University of Texas at Austin.

She is a pioneer in the field of self-compassion research, conducting the first empirical studies on self-compassion more than fifteen years ago. In addition to writing numerous academic articles and book chapters on the topic, she is author of Self-Compassion . In conjunction with her colleague Christopher Germer, she developed an empirically supported, eight-week training program called Mindful Self-Compassion, and offers workshops on self-compassion worldwide.