Yoga Offers Social Benefits to Children in Care

Highlights

• Children in corporate care homes have higher degree of physical and mental health needs.
• Yoga sessions helped the children and staff in corporate care to achieve individual benefits like feeling more relaxed and social benefits like feeling more open and positive.

The health and psychological well-being of children in care homes could be improved by a certain type of yoga. The new study from The University of Nottingham found that the practice of Kundalini yoga in care homes can lead to both individual and social benefits, when both staff and children are involved.

Evidence from Research for the Department for Education has shown that children in corporate care are the most vulnerable in the society with a higher degree of physical and mental health needs compared to their counterparts, and to children who are in other forms of care, such as foster care.

This new study was based on the belief of 'creative practice as mutual recovery', and looked at the idea that resilience in mental health and well-being among communities that have been traditionally divided can be promoted by shared creativity, collective experience and mutual benefit.

Benefits of Kundalini Yoga

Researchers tested a twenty week Kundalini yoga program in three children's homes situated in the East Midlands.

The findings showed that yoga practice in children's homes has the potential to encourage togetherness, mutuality and improve health and psychological outcomes for both the children in care and the workforce.

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All the participants reported that they experienced both individual benefits like feeling more relaxed and social benefits like feeling more open and positive.

Beneficial exercises that could be used in various contexts, such as before going to bed, or during emotionally challenging times at work as well as at home, were also imparted through yoga.

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Participants reported that they felt more positive, open to others and, as a consequence, had seen an improvement in their social, out of work lives.

"The findings are very exciting as they suggest that the practice of Kundalini yoga, involving both staff and children in care, is a plausible intervention that can lead to individual and social benefits. This could have potentially huge, wide-reaching benefits for children in care as well as for all the staff working in residential settings.” says Dr Elvira Perez, a Senior Research Fellow at Horizon, member of the Institute of Mental Health, and lead author of the study.

The study was carried out by experts from The University of Nottingham's Institute of Mental Health in conjunction with external collaborators Mark Ball, Edge of Care Hub Manager at Nottingham City Council (Children and Families), Emily Haslam-Jones, Kundalini yoga teacher at Yoganova and David Crepaz-Keay from the Mental Health Foundation.

The study titled 'Kundalini Yoga as Mutual Recovery: A feasibility study including children in care and their carers is published at The Journal of Children's Services

Reference

1. Elvira Perez et al. Kundalini Yoga as Mutual Recovery: A feasibility study including children in care and their carers. The Journal of Children's Services; (2016ˆ) doi: 10.1371

Source-Medindia