Good Idea: Yoga teaches foster carers to manage emotionseffectively
Laura McCardle
Monday, April 28, 2014
Provider: Liz Lark
Name: Yoga for foster carers
Summary: Free yoga sessions help foster carers to take time out for themselves, giving them fresh perspectives to be better at setting a good example to children in their care
"It's important that foster carers are able to manage their own emotions so that they can teach young people through the way they live," says freelance fostering consultant Andrea Warman.
That's why she has just delivered a pilot project that saw a group of foster carers in Kent take part in a series of free yoga sessions.
Yoga teacher to the stars Liz Lark, whose famous alumni include Hollywood actors Alan Rickman and Ralph Fiennes, led the classes at a centre in Kent run by independent fostering agency ISP.
The foster carers, who Warman says often look after troubled children and young people, took part in six one-and-a-half-hour sessions alongside staff from the centre, learning various yoga positions and relaxation techniques.
In addition, Warman and Lark also gave the carers gifts in a bid to support the calming techniques they learned in the classes.
"We also did little things along the way," she explains.
"We gave them candles so they could meditate and they've got the book that Liz wrote - they've really enjoyed these things."
The aim of the pilot was to explore whether the exercise - well known for its calming effect - could impact on the health and wellbeing of foster carers.
"I personally do yoga - I have practised it for 15 years - and through that I met Liz," Warman explains.
Warman said providing yoga lessons for foster carers has two intended consequences. Firstly, it allows them to relax from the tough job of being a foster parent, while it also gives them the tools to be a more positive and understanding figure for the child they are caring for.
"Foster carers are given a lot of responsibility to help children leave care and live happy, healthy lives," she says.
"They build their self-esteem through things they do with them in the home but they are also role models.
"The way they eat, the way they act is really important and it really makes a difference, and yoga can help with that."
Now that the pilot has ended, Warman, who spent six years at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) as the organisation's fostering development consultant, is starting to collect feedback from participants in order to measure the impact of the classes - and she has already received some positive results.
"One of the men I interviewed said that over the weeks he has found that he is sleeping better," she says.
"He said when you are in the room doing your yoga, you are in your own space in your own world. It's time for you. He has taken that away and is doing that in his day.
"He is currently looking after a 12-year-old who is quite troubled and he said that in the past his wife had said that sometimes he was a little tough with him and that he reacted too much.
"But in recent weeks he has noticed that he's taken a step back and because he is feeling calmer, he's giving him space and not reacting, he's thinking about how to talk to him and how to react."
Warman says news of the pilot spread throughout the IPS fostering network, with a number of centres expressing interest in delivering yoga for their carers.
"I am absolutely thrilled about this," she says. "Once we have got the carers on board, we want to do a workshop with the young people that they are looking after to introduce yoga to them.
"I'm delighted that we will have the staff, the carers and the young people on board.
"The reason I am so enthusiastic about this is I have been involved in fostering policy and practice for a long time, and I think carers need practical support to help them do what they do and I don't think there is enough of that."
Warman, who is chair of Lewisham's fostering panel, also hopes to take her project into local authorities.
"My dream is to try it with local authority carers, who I think are the most stressed," she explains.
"This is taking forward a theme I've got, which is helping carers do what they do but recognises their emotional wellbeing and their role as role models. I don't think we do enough of that in the local authority sector. I think that's why we can recruit carers but not keep them."