I watched our cat the other morning, sitting quietly beside what used to be a lively rat’s nest. She wasn’t pouncing, prowling, or even particularly alert. She was simply there — present, steady, unhurried. Within days the rats had relocated. No drama, no battle. Just the quiet influence of her being. I’ve seen the same
The Subtlety of Being Rather Than Doing Continue »
One of the things I worry about most with young people is how early we start defining them. Clever, academic, difficult, anxious, high achieving, not reaching potential, good at maths, bad at English, university material, not university material. And then come the results, the grades, the comparisons and the inevitable question of what you are
You Are Good Enough Continue »
This informal CPD article ‘Evidence-Informed Practice in Yoga for Children and Young People’ was provided by Teen Yoga Foundation, a charity promoting the well-being of young people through the practice of yoga in schools & beyond through trainings, events & classes. Interest in yoga as a supportive approach for children and young people’s wellbeing has grown
CPD ARTICLE – Evidence-Informed Practice in Yoga for Children and Young People Continue »
This informal CPD article ‘Yoga for Young People: Considerations for Practice Across Different Settings’ was provided by Teen Yoga Foundation, a charity promoting the well-being of young people through the practice of yoga in schools & beyond through trainings, events & classes. Interest in yoga as a support for children and young people’s wellbeing has grown
Adolescence is a period of enormous neurological, emotional and social change. Young people are navigating identity, relationships, academic pressure, changing bodies and an increasingly digital world, often while their nervous systems are still developing. Yoga therapy offers practical, evidence-informed tools that help young people become more aware of their internal experience, regulate stress, improve resilience
10 Yoga Therapy Tools to Support Teenagers Continue »
By Charlotta Martinus The growing calls to ban smartphones and social media for young people are understandable. Many parents, teachers and professionals are deeply concerned. We see rising anxiety, sleep deprivation, social comparison, cyberbullying and a generation increasingly drawn away from the physical world and into the digital one. The impulse to protect young people
Banning the Phone or Building the Human? Continue »
In 2005, Japanese mathematician and essayist Masahiko Fujiwara published a provocative book, The Dignity of the Nation. His central argument was simple but profound: a nation does not flourish because of wealth, technology, logic or even democracy alone. It flourishes because of the character of its people. A nation possesses dignity when its citizens are
The Dignity We Cannot Measure: Why Young People Need More Than Mental Health Support Continue »
One of the assumptions that concerns me most when discussing the growing number of young people who are not in education, employment or training is the subtle belief that the trend is somehow inevitable. When a problem becomes large enough, visible enough and persistent enough, there is a tendency to begin treating it as a fact of
Can We Reverse a National Trend? History Suggests We Can. Continue »
One of the qualities I most admire in any society is the willingness to change course when new evidence emerges. It is surprisingly difficult for institutions, governments and even individuals to admit that an idea which once appeared progressive may require reconsideration. Yet throughout history, some of the most important advances have occurred when people
Sweden’s U-Turn on Screens and the Courage to Ask What Children Really Need Continue »
When Alan Milburn’s report landed on my desk, I found myself thinking less about employment statistics and more about a group of teenagers standing outside a school gate twenty years ago. At first glance, the connection may seem tenuous. The report concerns the growing number of young people in the United Kingdom who find themselves outside
What Iceland Teaches Us About the NEET Crisis Continue »
Alan Milburn’s recent report on young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) highlights one of the most pressing social and economic challenges facing the UK today. The rising numbers should concern all of us, not only because of the impact on the life chances of individual young people, but because they
The NEET Crisis Begins Long Before a Young Person Leaves School Continue »
There is a strange contradiction at the heart of modern life. We are more connected than ever, more visible than ever, more able to perform ourselves to the world than any generation in history, and yet so many young people feel unseen in the ways that matter most. Beneath the endless stream of content, branding,
The Quiet Measure of a Life: Dignity, Grace and the Return to Real Connection Continue »
We live in a time that is deeply committed to the reduction of suffering. This is, in many ways, a moral achievement. We have language for mental health, access to support, increasing compassion in systems that once ignored distress. And yet, alongside this, there is a quiet risk: that all suffering becomes something to be
The Intelligence of Suffering Continue »
There is a moment in almost every session when something subtle yet decisive shifts, and it rarely corresponds to the introduction of a new technique or the refinement of a sequence. It happens instead when the young person recognises, often without naming it, that they are in the presence of someone whose attention is not
Attention Is the Medicine: Why Presence, Not Technique, Heals. Continue »
There are moments in this work that do not look like breakthroughs at all. They look small. A shift in posture. A breath that lingers a second longer. A young person choosing, perhaps for the first time, not to leave themselves. And yet these moments build something profound — the return of agency, and with
This isnt compliance – it is agency Continue »
A generous donor has made something genuinely radical possible — five fully funded places on our 60-hour live London course, offered to individuals with the capacity to reach over a hundred young people each. Three of them are already working in therapeutic settings. Crucially, this course brings together leading practitioners, including a specialist paediatric physiotherapist from
This is what impact looks like. Continue »
There is something I have come to understand very clearly over the years: real change does not begin with systems, it begins with people. It begins in the body, in the nervous system, in those small, often invisible moments where a young person either feels overwhelmed by life or finds just enough steadiness to stay
Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) is a medical condition that affects the way the brain and body communicate, leading to a range of physical and neurological symptoms. These can include non-epileptic seizures, motor problems like weakness, paralysis, or involuntary movements, as well as difficulties with balance, coordination, bladder and bowel function, and speech. People with FND
Understanding Functional Neurological Disorder (FND): A Guide for Educators Continue »
There is something slightly uneasy about the word therapy. Not because it is wrong, nor because it has not brought relief and understanding to many, but because it carries with it a particular orientation: one that can, at times, locate the problem within the individual and the solution in an intervention. When we bring this word into the
Cikitsā: a different language for healing Continue »
There is a growing silence among our young people. It is not loud, not rebellious in the ways we have learned to recognise rebellion. It does not march or shout. It withdraws, it pauses, it lingers in the in-between. And we have named it NEET — Not in Education, Employment or Training — a label
The Silent Refusal: Young People, NEET, and the Return to Being Continue »
There are times when the atmosphere of the world changes energetically—something tightens, something hardens, becomes more fragile. War ripples far beyond the places where bombs fall. It enters conversations, homes, classrooms, it enters the inner world of a young person. They feel it in the tone of adults, in the urgency of the news, in
When the World Feels Unsteady: War, Fear and the Shadow in Young People Continue »
