From Breath to Beadwork: Lessons Learned From a Trauma- Informed Yoga Series With Indigenous Adolescent Girls Under Youth Protection

Abstract

This paper explores the promising practice of an emerging culturally adapted, trauma-informed yoga program for Indigenous adolescent girls. I draw from my experiential learning during a series of 12 yoga sessions over 2018 and 2019 with eight Indigenous girls (ages 13–17) from rural and remote Inuit communities in Quebec, Canada. Participants had experienced varying degrees of child maltreatment and interaction with the child welfare system, and they were all under the care of youth protection services in a residential facility. The yoga and mindfulness intervention provided weekly 60-minute sessions in the residential unit. Yoga sessions integrated a blended model of cultural teachings, group dialogue, and trauma-informed yoga. The approach included circle sharing, cultural teachings, gentle progressions of physical postures, guided meditation, breathing techniques, centring practices, and beadwork. This promising practice explores trauma-informed yoga as a strengths-based community strategy for relational healing that promotes cultural connectedness, safety, and resilience among Indigenous adolescent girls removed from their rural and remote communities to a residential facility in an urban area. This paper outlines an introductory framework for health professionals, paraprofessionals, program administrators, and staff working with Indigenous children and youth in residential facilities. Specifically, this promising practice builds on existing findings of trauma-informed yoga with adolescents, as well as movement and centring approaches through an Indigenous lens of relational healing.