Youth London Talking Circles for BAME girls aged 10-14

The Teen Yoga Foundation exists to empower young people.  In collaboration with Haptivate, we are delivering a short introductory course in how to facilitate talking circles with BAME girls 10-14 years old, so they may in turn become more comfortable doing so for their peers. This is done in an online short course for Youth Workers, working in London.

These sessions are on demand for private groups of 15. 

Investment: £1500. Please contact info@teenyoga.com to book.

WHAT IS A TALKING CIRCLE?

In this context, a talking circle is an opportunity for BAME girls to openly discuss mental health issues in a safe and held space.

Youth workers will be introduced into how this is done and expect to model the experience for the girls so that they in turn, can do it for their peers.

In this context, we will share techniques in how, exactly to help the girls “get out of their heads”.

This is not a talking, psychotherapeutic intervention, but a “bottom up” intervention, where we use the body to calm the mind, through body-mapping, tense and relaxation, specific breathing exercises and specific movements.

OBJECTIVE

An introduction in how to help BAME girls become more comfortable with talking about mental health issues and for them to be able to support their peers in this.

METHOD

The Teen Yoga Foundation has created a bespoke introductory course online of approximately 15 hours of commitment for Youth workers, including videos, PDFs, discussion groups, individual journals, live webinars and resources to take away which will be run over a period of a few weeks. The commitment and engagement of the Youth workers with the asynchronous aspect of the course is absolutely essential as this is referred to and subject of the live webinars.

SKILLSET LEARNT:

Active listening skills, self-care methods, setting boundaries, letting go (relaxation), body-based techniques to support optimal mental health.

FACULTY:

Charlotta Martinus, Master of Yoga, SYT, will facilitate the webinars and has designed the content of the course, she has 30 years’ experience working with young people in different contexts and cultures as a school-teacher and therapist. She has been training professionals to work with young people since 2004 and is the founder and director of the Teen Yoga Foundation and author of TeenYoga for yoga therapists.

Dr Nick Kearney, specialist in Online Learning, has designed the programme.

Evaluation report from initial Talking Circles project can be found here.

TUTORS:

Niki Moss-Simpson, Dianne Murphy and Helen Appleby, to guide each Youth Worker through the module. All tutors have more than 10 years’ experience with young people and mental health practises for young people.