Yoga as Mutual Recovery: Clinical and Social Implications for Looked-After Children and their Carers

This project aims to assess the therapeutic effects of -a more dynamic, fun, and physical type of yoga- on wellbeing, mental health, and relationship outcomes. We hypothesise that this type of embodied practice will be more appealing than conventional therapy or other forms of treatment that may lack the physicality and dynamism (e.g., Mindfulness) present in Kundalini yoga. Recent work has indicated that yoga can also improve, apart from subjective wellbeing, cognitive-behavioural performance and control (e.g., attention and focus). Although there have been non controlled studies of the effects of yoga in children’s homes, we reasoned that this type of yoga could have beneficial effects in a setting where psychological functioning is often low, and the frequency of impulsive behaviour high. The idea that you are affected by your environment and the people around you informs the approach of ‘mutual recovery’ and the need to include formal/informal carers, who experience high levels of stress working with traumatized individuals. Children seeing stress-management being modelled by their formal/informal carers could increase the effectiveness of the intervention.