In their professional life, teachers need to respond competently to new challenges, such as the increasing diversity in the classrooms (Nishina et al., 2019). To provide support to teachers across Europe and to promote their wellbeing, trainings need to consider teaching in a changing and diverse setting, promote teachers’ social and emotional competencies and their collaboration, address needs identified by the teachers by providing continuing professional development to support teachers’ careers (European Commission, 2021). To address these aspects, eleven partners and thirteen associated partners across seven countries cooperate in the project "HAND IN HAND: Empowering teachers across Europe to deal with social, emotional and diversity related career challenges" (HAND:ET; 03/2021 to 02/2024). The project develops a training program that enhances social-emotional competences and diversity awareness (SEDA) among teachers using a mindfulness-based approach, assuming this to impact teachers’ self-care and well-being (Ellerbrock et al., 2016; Emerson et al., 2017; Zarate et al., 2019). In 2022/23, the concept will be implemented as a whole-school-whole-year support system. It consists of a set of participatory activities, learning experiences focusing on mindfulness and SEDA competencies, continuous supervision, monitoring and support over one academic year. Although teachers (primary and lower secondary) are the direct target group, principals and school counsellors will be also included. A longitudinal study will investigate the program’s effects with intervention and comparison groups in five consortium countries (Slovenia, Croatia, Sweden, Austria, Portugal). In the presented paper, we will elaborate on the situation for teachers in Austria, briefly introduce the program’s core concepts (SEDA and mindfulness) and illustrate their importance for teachers’ professional development. We will discuss existing evidence supporting the hypothesis that the promotion of these concepts supports teachers’ long-term development (Carsley et al., 2018; Collie, 2017; Nielsen et al., 2019). Moreover, we will outline the accompanying research on the implementation in five European countries within their specific context and education system.

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