Dedicated to uplift the field of yoga service
The Yoga Service Best Practices Guidebooks are dedicated to uplifting the field of yoga service by sharing the insights, experiences, and knowledge of leading teachers, researchers, therapists, medical professionals, policy makers, and others working to make yoga and mindfulness practices equally available to all.
Launched in 2014 as a joint YSC and the Omega Institute initiative, the Best Practices Guidebooks are co-created through collaboration during the annual Best Practices Symposium.
Every year, an edited volume is published that integrates the knowledge generated at the Symposium with additional input from a select group of teachers, researchers, and others. Prior to publication, each book is vetted by the full roster of Symposium participants, as well as 3-4 peer reviewers, to ensure its status as a top-quality work that will promote excellence in the field.
Yoga and Resilience
Empowering Practices for Survivors of Sexual Trauma
“This book is also a blueprint for yoga teachers who specifically want to teach to survivors, which hasn’t been available until now. I’m grateful that yoga has evolved to produce texts like this so that survivors can heal in our classes rather than be re-traumatized because of ignorance or lack of fundamental training. As yoga teachers, it is so important that we learn the necessary skills to understand the specific needs of sexual violence survivors and work towards creating a classroom experience that is informed, mindful and responsible. This book is a resource that can do that. I highly recommend it.”
~ Seane Corne
Best practices for Yoga in Schools
YSC Best Practices Guide – Volume 1
“This is a remarkable effort…a sage, inspiring, pragmatic and well presented manual of best practices for every one seeking to provide ‘safe, effective, inclusive, and sustainable’ yoga classes in schools. The collective wisdom and experience is immediately apparent.”
~ John Kepner,
Executive Director: International Association of Yoga Therapists
Best Practices for Yoga with Veterans
YSC Best Practices Guide – Volume 2
Best Practices for Yoga with Veterans is the product of a unique collaborative process involving 30 contributors with expertise not only in yoga, mindfulness, and meditation, but also veterans’ affairs, military operations and culture, traditional and integrative medicine, clinical psychology, trauma therapy, social work, nonprofit management, and more.
Best Practices for Yoga with Veterans synthesizes this wealth of knowledge to produce over 100 Best Practice guidelines for teaching yoga in ways that will enable all veterans – regardless of age, gender, physical ability, or health status – to experience it as a means of supporting physical, psychological, and emotional health, well-being, and resilience.
Key topics addressed include adapting yoga to military culture, working with trauma, hiring and training yoga teachers, developing yoga programs and curriculum, understanding gender issues, and working with incarcerated veterans, in the VA, and with families of veterans
Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System
YSC Best Practices Guide – Volume 3
Yoga is rapidly gaining acceptance as a valuable resource for physical, psychological, behavioral and spiritual health in the U.S. criminal justice system and worldwide. Best Practices for Yoga in the Criminal Justice System is a user-friendly guide that explains how to develop, implement, and sustain high-quality yoga programs appropriate for jails, prisons, youth detention centers, and court-ordered programs.
Synthesizing the knowledge and experience of 29 leaders in the field, this book is a must-have resource for anyone interested in yoga in the criminal justice system, including yoga teachers and yoga service organizations, correctional officers and other criminal justice professionals, and physical and mental health providers.
Key topics covered include problems of mass incarceration, institutional context and culture, teacher training requirements, curriculum and teaching guidelines, adapting trauma informed yoga to correctional facilities, staffing and developing yoga service organizations, and establishing yoga teacher training programs for incarcerated individuals “on the inside.”