Join a growing force in your community creating positive change with trauma-sensitive yoga, movement, and meditation!
Study with experts in the field, and cover topics such as social justice and yoga, trauma-informed instructional strategies, boundaries, and self-care.
This training is for anybody wanting to learn how to offer trauma-informed, somatic tools.

Past participants have included yoga instructors, medical professionals, social workers, mental health counselors, detention staff and people who want to deepen their own practice.

Deepen your own practice. Learn trauma-informed healing modalities to address the unique challenges faced by populations impacted by trauma, especially incarcerated youth and adults. Make a difference.

Schedule: 

• Wednesday, March 13 – 9:30am-4:00pm
• Thursday, March 14 – 9:00am-5:00pm
• Friday, March 15 – 9:00am-2:30pm
  (There will be a one-hour lunch break each day.)

Sliding scale from $395-595, a limited number of scholarships are available for people of color, formerly incarcerated folks and partial work/trade by request.

What we offer:
-A brave space for self-exploration, growth, and community building
-Thorough preparation to offer trauma informed yoga and meditation in jail, prison or any other setting to foster connection, resilience, and healing. Including:

• Trauma-informed language and tools
• Yoga and the brain
• Context inside prisons and mass incarceration
• Training on race and social justice and skills for working in environments of suffering/trauma in a sustainable and just way
• Inspiration and community

The 60+ page Yoga Behind Bars manual, valued at $75
17 hours of elective CE credit with Yoga Alliance

Prerequisites:
This training is for yoga and meditation teachers as well as anybody wanting to study somatic-based tools to work with trauma.

Venue: Youngstown Cultural Arts Center, 4408 Delridge Way Southwest Classroom 102, Seattle 98106.

Training fees: Sliding Scale*

• $395 Access Rate (this is the subsidized rate for those who need financial assistance to access the training)
• $495 Standard Rate (this covers the expenses of the training)
• $595 Sustaining Rate (paying this rate subsidizes scholarships for formerly-incarcerated participants and others with less financial ability)

All rates include 17 hours of training and a $75 manual.

*It is our hope that offering a sliding scale will help us grow a strong and sustainable teaching community. If you can ask others for financial support, such as family members, partners, or friends, please consider using those personal resources before you choose the access level of the sliding scale. Many of our past participants have successfully fundraised in their communities to cover their training fees.

Payment/Cancellation Policy
Payments in installments, scholarships for people of color, formerly incarcerated, and partial work/exchange available, please contact us for more information.

-Please note that we ask for a $40 administrative fee from all participants
-If you need to cancel your registration:

• Up to 14 days before training, you will get reimbursed in full, minus a $40 administrative fee
• Cancellations within 14 days of the training will be refunded 50%
• Cancellations within  7 days of the training will not be reimbursed, except in case of emergency

About the Trainers

Rosa Vissers sees movement as a powerful pathway to reclaiming our beauty, resilience, and connection — to ourselves and each other. As the Executive Director of Yoga Behind Bars, she has taught yoga to hundreds of incarcerated people and trained more than 300 teachers to instruct trauma-informed yoga and meditation behind bars. In 2015 Rosa spearheaded YBB’s launch of its Yoga Teacher Trainings behind bars, one of the country’s first, and she has presented a TEDx talk on yoga in prisons. She is a Contributing Editor to the upcoming Yoga Service Council book: Best Practices for Teaching Yoga in the Criminal Justice System. Rosa has an extensive background as a professional dance artist and holds an MFA in Modern Dance from the University of Utah. She completed her 500-hr Yoga Teacher Training in 2007 at Centered City Yoga in Salt Lake City.

Jess Frank is YBB’s Program Director. Her passion for providing transformative opportunities to incarcerated people sparked at the start of her career and has only grown since she became a YBB instructor over three years ago. As a program coordinator for the Post Prison Education Program and University Beyond Bars, Jess became both intimately acquainted with the challenges facing people in the criminal justice system and deeply inspired by the dedication of the students. As YBB’s program director, Jess manages and mentors volunteers, oversees program expansion, and conducts site visits and evaluations. One of the highlights of her week is teaching yoga to 25 students at the men’s prison in Monroe.

Natalie Cielle is joining the dream team above to co-lead this training. She is a born and mostly-raised-in-the-PNWer with a 10 year stint in New Orleans and co-founded Yoga Behind Bars in 2008 with founder, Shaina Traisman.  She had the privilege of beginning many programs that are still going strong today. She is a 500-Hr yoga teacher with a very deep and wide meditation practice, who is also grounded and humbled daily by her four year old daughter. She hopes to bring her experience into the room to support you as you start, or deepen, this transformational work.