About Chrissy: background & credentials
Yoga Alliance Professional Member since 2006
Qualified Mental Health First Aider for Young People, 2021 MHFA England
Trauma Awareness: A Yogic Framework, Yoga International 2021
Professional Yoga Therapist for Teens aged 11-21 years, London 2018 www.teenyoga.com Certified to teach yoga anatomy, physiology, socio-psychology and neuroscience.
Yoga & Mindfulness Teacher for children aged 4-11 years, London 2011 www.calmforkids.com
YogaKids Foundation Certificate awarded, Singapore, 2007 www.yogakids.com
Member & Specialist Teacher of the Yoga Alliance UK for Schools
Member of the UK's PSHE Association
DBS certified (Criminal Records Bureau and Independent Safeguarding Authority)
Qualified Children's First Aider: www.childmatters.co.uk
£7M professional liability insurance for as a Specialist Yoga teacher: www.wellbeinginsurance.co.uk
My Background
I discovered the benefits of yoga in the mid 90's as a young and ambitious marketer in the UK's financial sector - it kept me grounded amid the stresses, challenges & busyness of life. As my career progressed into Senior Marketing Management, yoga and meditation became a weekly life-line to decompress and relax.
In 2003, I seized the opportunity to live and work in Asia, where I began to practice yoga everyday. It was transformational and rekindled a real passion in me because of the way it made me feel - healthy, confident, composed and more 'self-aware' than I had ever been.
During my first year in Hong Kong, I volunteered for two Christian children's charities, namely Mothers' Choice (who provide a boarding home and school for abandoned, pregnant teenagers, in addition to offering foster and adopted homes for their new-born babies); and secondly the Matilda Child Development Centre (a pre-school for children with autism and mental disabilities) where I worked as a Teaching Assistant. Both charities truly captured my heart and became life-changing experiences that would later support my bold move into the education sector.
The following year, I relocated from Hong Kong to Singapore, and enrolled on the YogaKids (YK) Teacher Training foundation course. Excited by what I had learned and its philosophical approach to a 'whole-child' education, I successfully passed the course and began working with my YK Mentor, Miss Hasna, a truly inspirational teacher and founder of Positive Focus (www.positivefocus.com.sg). I inherited a true passion for sharing how the (teenage) brain works and the benefits of adopting a growth mindset in our children from a young age, way ahead of its introduction into UK schools.
In 2010, I returned to the UK and the following year, graduated from Calm For Kids. I began to gain experience teaching yoga & mindfulness to children at a local Montessori primary school in Berkshire; infant and primary pupils of LVS Ascot; and students across Key Stages 1,2 and 3 at a private club in Surrey. I also offered Yoga in Summer Camps to teenage girls of Heathfield School, Ascot and Downe House School, Newbury; and led a series of experiential "Mindfulness in Schools" workshops to Teaching and Pastoral staff at St. George's Teenage Girls Boarding School, Ascot.
In 2015 my family relocated to Marlow, Buckinghamshire UK, and I officially launched Joyful Hearts Yoga & Mindfulness for Teens & Kids. My working week consists of a healthy balance of teaching Mindful Yoga in secondary schools to students of Sir William Borlase Grammar School in Marlow and Wycombe High Girls School. I support families by offering private 1:1 yoga & mindfulness tuition for children and teens with specific behavioural issues, or who have special learning needs (identified by schools or parents); I offer family yoga; and as a volunteer for All Saints Church, Marlow, I run ad-hoc Holy Yoga classes for a teen-girl youth group called C.A.K.E.
It is my hope that every child/teen I have the privilege to spend time with, will prioritise their physical, mental, emotional, social and spiritual health and wellbeing, so they come to appreciate the preciousness of personal down-time more regularly; and cherish the transformational changes a regular yoga and/or mindfulness practice can make, to positively shape their young lives as they grow into adulthood.
I believe each and every child should be given access to the very best start in life - regardless of background; and if I can create a spark of curiosity that allows young people to feel the efficacy of connecting in body-mind and soul through their yoga, and take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, then I will be fulfilling my ambition for Joyful Hearts.
