Contact
Emily Westlake
Administrative Manager
emily@yogabehindbars.org
206-783-0403
When
Training fees
*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 commuinties to cover their training fees.
Payment/Cancellation Policy
Payments in installments, scholarships for people of color, formerly incarerated, and partial work/exchange available, please contact us for more information.
- Please note that we ask for a non-refundable $25 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 $25 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
Who are we?
Yoga Behind Bars shares yoga and meditation with incarcerated people to promote rehabilitation, personal transformation, and a more just society for all.
When we started out, Yoga Behind Bars was one yoga teacher offering one weekly class in Seattle's downtown jail. Today a team of 75+ volunteer yoga instructors teach an average of 35 yoga and meditation classes a week in fifteen prisons, jails and detention centers across Washington state.
peace is an inside job
Yoga Behind Bars Teacher Training
Missoula 2017
Join us for the most comprehensive training available for teaching in prisons and in other vulnerable communities.
- A safe 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, safety, and healing. Including:
- Boundary training
- Verbal adjustments and languaging
- Time with current YBB instructors
- Prison culture
- 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 CE credit with Yoga Alliance
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 two 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.
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