Today we’d like to introduce you to Brooke Blankenship.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Brooke. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
The organization’s roots stem from my work as an elementary school librarian and teacher. I experienced first hand the dynamic and unforgiving struggles that my students and their families faced daily. Learning is an impossible task when your basic needs are not being met. The need for improvement in the overall well-being of students was so evident, I began incorporating yoga into my library classes, through the introduction of poses sequenced with children’s literature. My classes were so successful, I knew I had to share this work with more children. I created Yogi Squad to become a part of the solution to the rising mental health and wellness needs of our community, city, state, country, and world.
Since Yogi Squad’s start in 2018, we have served more than 2,000 children, of which 90% attend additional classes. From toddlers to teens and everything in between, our classes give kids practice with tools and techniques that have been proven to positively benefit human well-being. Yogi Squad’s dream is to give all children access to tools to help them make gains and thrive- at school, at home, and throughout life. Through our yoga, literacy, and mindfulness classes, we are offering students an opportunity to maintain a healthy social and emotional well-being, and therefore raising the bar for a more successful future for our children. We believe that all children deserve equal access to the tools that allow them to become the best version of themselves, and our goal is to share them with as many children as possible.
Has it been a smooth road?
COVID has directly affected our ability to provide our services through our biggest partners, schools. Our school programs were gaining positive momentum until schools and many of our community partners were forced to shut down due to the current pandemic beginning here in Texas in March of 2020. Now, as we continue to charge forward into a mostly digital environment, our focus has pivoted to serving families and children at home. We’ve created a Virtual Yoga Studio, where on-demand access to our classes is available 24/7 for the entire family. This allows us to continue to safely provide our unique formula of literacy-rich classes that also satisfy the social, emotional, and physical needs of children.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Yogi Squad story. Tell us more about your organization.
Yogi Squad is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to providing affordable and free, interactive yoga storytimes designed to enhance literacy development and promote positive social, emotional, and physical growth in all children. We collaborate with local businesses for special events and projects that promote wellness within the community. We work with FitWorth, the Fort Worth Community Centers, Fort Worth Public Libraries, and local schools to help educate families on best practices for optimal health. We partner with early childhood centers and schools, enrichment programs, and like-minded organizations such as Academy 4, to provide socially and emotionally-infused classes that equip young people with the knowledge of how to manage their strong emotions, prepare them to live their best lives, and allow them to manifest their own success.
Yogi Squad’s classes are 100% customized to meet the needs of each and every group we serve. The basic sequence of our classes generally follow the same format, but by utilizing our extensive background in education, specifically literacy, Yogi Squad classes give students new ways to learn and connect with literature like never before. Even some of the most reluctant readers love storytime Yogi Squad style! Below are descriptions of what a typical class can look like. You’ll see age recommendations at the end of each description in “-ish.” We say this because no one knows their child like their parents, so we want to be able to give people suggestions without limits so they can decide what is best for their yogi.
Yogi Tots: 30-minute classes designed just for growing babies and toddlers. Expect to sing silly songs and listen to short stories that promote literacy, movement, mindfulness, and self-awareness. We create special yoga sequences that incorporate the theme of a book. Our fast-paced classes are engaging, fun, and educational! Students will develop fine motor skills and muscle strength, nurture self-esteem and body-awareness, gain confidence and encourage creativity, all while participating in an outlet that stimulates social interaction. Walkers to Age 4-ish.
Yogi Kids: 45-55-minute story-themed yoga classes. Students will learn breathing and focusing techniques, flow through simple yoga poses (themed with an accompanying high-quality children’s picture book), sing songs, dance, and play games. Students will strengthen their bodies and develop positive self-awareness while cultivating their own set of mindfulness tools that will become instrumental throughout their daily lives. All classes incorporate reading interest levels and appropriate stages of development for the specific age group of students. Ages 5-ish-10-ish.
Yogi T(w)eens: Stressed out? Bored? Yogi T(w)eens was designed with t(w)eens in mind. Our classes will give you a chance to strengthen and stretch, to ease stress, and to engage the mind with an inquisitive short story. Classes include calming yoga poses that encourage positive body awareness, reduced tension, less stress and anxiety, and increased balance, flexibility, and coordination. We’ll also explore mindfulness techniques you can use to be calmer and more present throughout your day. Ages 11ish-17ish.
Yogi Squad classes are making children more resilient. When children learn to recognize and understand their emotions, they can also learn to control them. We teach children how to access tools with themselves that allow them to feel safe in their own bodies. We teach them ways of controlling the breath and the body to relax the mind. We empower children with the confidence needed to live their best life. Supporting the social and emotional health of children is the foundation for teaching and learning. If we can teach them to feel calm and safe in their own body, they will be ready and available to receive anything that we teach them.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
For Yogi Squad, the outlook for the future comes down to opportunity. Opportunity to leave the world better than we found it. This is why we believe social and emotional learning is more important than ever. Most of us live in a stress-filled world. Our daily lives are filled with around-the-clock activities, meetings, and routines that usually leave us little time to decompress. Our children’s lives are much the same. Stress from social situations, academics, sports, sibling relations, family obligations- and now a global pandemic all directly affect our children. If unmanaged, stress becomes toxic and can actually compromise the development of the brain and affect all kinds of things like focus, decision-making, and learning. Stress can also lead to anxiety.
According to the CDC, 7.1% of children (about 4.4 million) in the United States have been diagnosed with anxiety. Anxiety often exists as fear or worry in children, but can also make them angry and irritable. Anxiety also causes a host of other symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, stomachaches, and restless sleeping. Behavior issues are often one of the first signs that a child may be experiencing anxiety or stress, although some children show no signs whatsoever because they’ve already learned to internalize their worries.
Both stress and anxiety can have damaging effects on a child’s ability to form healthy and stable relationships, their ability to hold a job and manage finances throughout their lives. Children experiencing stress and anxiety are also at a higher risk for the diagnosis of depression. Further, minority children may also face exposure to prolonged stress from “historical and ongoing traumas due to systemic racism or the impacts of poverty resulting from limited educational and economic opportunities” (Consequences of Adverse Childhood Experiences; CDC).
Due to the presence of this current global pandemic, we are all currently in crisis-mode and experiencing trauma at some level. We are all undergoing dramatic changes in our lives that affect everyone, regardless of age, ethnicity, or background. Children that learn to identify and manage their strong emotions gain resiliency for the challenges and setbacks they are apt to experience throughout their lives. When children begin to understand how stress affects their body’s response system, it becomes easier for them to recognize these feelings and use learned tools to help themselves calm down and feel better.
There is a famous quote from the Dalai Lama that says: “If every eight years old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.” Although meditation practices have been around for thousands of years, the benefits of these practices have only recently become popularized. We have an opportunity to teach and encourage resilience-building by providing these tools to our children, giving them practice with them, and therefore allowing them to grow into more peaceful, compassionate human beings. We are giving them the gift of awareness- Awareness of themselves, of others, and of the world around them.
Pricing:
- Yogi Squad’s Virtual Yoga Studio, on-demand classes for tots, kids, t(w)teens, and adults $28/month
Contact Info:
- Website: www.yogisquad.org
- Phone: 8177177218
- Email: info@yogisquad.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yogisquadfw/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yogisquadfw
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/YogiSquadFW
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/yogi-squad-fort-worth
Suggest a story: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
