Contents
What does it mean to be a YANA graduate?
3 Curate your YANA graduate experience 5 7 Rooted Course
9 Member Support Calls 11 Volunteering Roles Community Nights
Mindset Team
Therapies Support
What does it mean to be a YANA graduate?
If you’re here, you’re about to graduate, or have just graduated, from your DBT Group
Congratulations!
We call it a ‘graduation’ as it marks the moment as the significant event it is – and one which only comes after a lot of commitment and hard work. Hopefully you’re feeling proud of what you’ve achieved, and maybe experiencing a new trust in yourself and your ability to thrive.
In some ways, ‘graduation’ isn’t the right word. Of course, the process of creating a life worth living doesn’t ‘finish’ like a university degree. It is a continual process of reflecting, iterating and experimenting. Life will continue to have its ups and downs, we’ll make mistakes, and there will be unexpected challenges to navigate. Progress won’t always feel linear –and that’s okay. We hope that with your DBT skills you’re feeling more equipped to cope with the challenges that arise, and that you can offer more compassion to yourself along the way.
Graduation also isn’t a goodbye from Body & Soul. In many ways, this is actually the start of you becoming part of the community. While you
are in the Group, you usually only get a glimpse of the Body & Soul community, and now is your chance to really get involved with all the opportunities on offer.
This booklet lays out all the different ways you can participate in the community. There’s a lot happening from wellbeing programmes, to volunteering, to creative projects – and the heart of it all is the relationships we develop within the space.
Ultimately ‘what it means to be a YANA graduate’ is up to you. It’s your community to shape so do share your thoughts with us on what it means to be a YANA graduate, and how you’d like to
Trauma-engaged Environment
Body & Soul is a trauma-engaged environment, and this approach is at the core of our YANA graduate offerings. What this means is that we recognise the profound effect traumatic experiences can have at every level of our being.
The effects of trauma can show up in many different ways – people who have experienced trauma can be impacted physically, emotionally, behaviourally, cognitively, spiritually, neurobiologically and relationally. For us, adopting a trauma-engaged approach rejects the concept of members being seen as ‘sick’, resistant or uncooperative. Our traumaengaged mindset asks, ‘What has happened to you?’ not ‘What is wrong with you?’.
Our graduate programmes encourage you to engage with a breadth of trauma-focused approaches that work beyond the mind, as we recognise that trauma impacts all our bodily systems. There is space for exploring and working on the way we think as individuals, but this is often not the entire picture, and so we bring in the role of our physical bodies, our environments and our relationships to one another too.
The heart of Body & Soul and all our programmes is the relationships we develop within the space and the community we co-create. We hold this understanding of trauma alongside an unwavering belief in, and commitment to, the potential for healing and growth.
If you’d like to learn more about this approach, here are some recommending resources:
Ted Talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime, Nadine Burke Harris (16 mins)
Book: What Happened To You? - Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey
Podcast: Sounds True: Insights at the EdgeTami Simon
Mindset Team
Therapy Support (for current support)
Community Nights
Your YANA graduate experience is yours to shape, so here’s your space to tick the opportunities you’d like to participate in.
If you don’t know what these opportunities mean yet, that’s exactly what this booklet is for - you’ve got detailed sections on each of them, so check those out first. You can then come back here and make a note of what opportunities you want to get involved in.
What you opt into now is just a starting point. You can keep trying things out and reconfiguring until you find a combination that suits you. What feels right for you is also likely to change and develop over time based on what else might be going on in your life.
Note: If you’re not sure what to pick for now, we suggest you start with The Rooted Course and then we can take it from there.
Rooted Course
The Rooted Course is a recommended first step for recent graduates. It’s a multi-session course which gives you a chance to explore all kinds of approaches and skills which can support your wellbeing and resilience. The sessions are hands-on and creative, covering topics from nutrition, to movement, to selfcompassion, to identity – moving through themes linked to the mind, body and soul.
Each week, on a Thursday evening, you’ll be invited to have a meal together, and then take part in an interactive session guided by an expert, where you’ll be introduced to new skills and start putting them into practice. The Rooted Course is actively trauma-engaged, anti-racist and holistic in approach.
Why join the Rooted Course?
An opportunity to develop new ways of thinking, being and doing that have a strong evidence-base to support their role in improving wellbeing
An opportunity to meet new people, develop friendships and be part of the Body & Soul community (Once you’ve graduated, you’re free to keep in touch with members of your group!)
An opportunity to keep practising your DBT skills – troubleshooting and sharing with others who are doing the same
Member Support Calls
“The
calls help you think about what you’re doing with life. It’s nice to have a listening ear who cares about what’s going on in your life.”
“They helped me to take care of myself. Asked me questions about how I am doing and gave me ideas to take care of myself.”
“A safe space to talk get advice and direction move on and
progress
talk about issues and direction on how to progress with them.”
Member Support Calls are a phone service, where you can receive regular check-in calls to help you work on a life worth living goal. Over the 8 weeks, you will have a 20-minute call each week at the same time, where a friendly volunteer will check in with you. They’ll help you tap into your own strengths to make progress on your goal. These calls are all about listening and supporting you, with no judgment - just a chance to talk through how you’re using your skills and reflect on what’s effective. It’s a great way to stay on track and feel supported in your journey.
To receive the support calls, here’s what you need to be ready for:
You’re willing to commit to 8 weekly calls
You’re ready to focus on a life worth living goal, and open to receiving support as you work on building your skills.
You’re not currently in 1-1 therapy
If this sounds like a good fit for you, the calls will be a great way to get the encouragement and guidance you need.
Please email Nina: nina@bodyandsoulcharity.org
Volunteering Roles
It’s likely that there will be a volunteering opportunity at Body & Soul where you can lean into your strengths, develop your interests, or try something new –whilst giving back to the community.
*You don’t need to be a ‘pro’ or ‘expert’ to come help out - this is another opportunity to practise your skills
Here’s a taster of volunteering roles held by YANA members:
DBT Training so you can hold support calls with other YANA members, and facilitate DBT Groups
Front-of-house welcoming at events or during the day
Facilitating Creative Community Projects like art projects or theatre workshops
Fundraising & Partnerships team as part of an Internship
Helping out in the Children’s Centre or Adult’s workshops for families who are living with or directly affected by HIV
Joining Bloom, a creative design team to help with content creation
Joining the casework team to support members with financial, legal, immigration and housing issues
Social Committee arranging the annual YANA celebrations
Developing DBT content for MindSET – we’ve got script writers, social media presenters, and behindthe-scenes production roles
Joining our Outreach Team to speak to potential referrers or new members about your experience in having been through YANA
Data collection and analysis to help us evaluate and improve our services (this can potentially be part of university research projects)
Community Nights
As you’ll know all too well by now, it’s not enough just to know the DBT skills –it’s the regular practise of your skills which builds up to make the difference. To support you to keep the skills fresh in your mind and incorporated into your everyday life, you can take part in monthly Community Nights.
Each month, we’ll be focusing on a theme which is relevant to your day-to-day lives, and there will be 3 workshops on offerfrom DBT-focused sessions, to creative workshops, to movement and singing sessions.
They tend to run the last Thursday of the month. You’ll be invited to a dinner from 6pm at Body & Soul to eat together and socialise before the event begins at 7pm.
Creative Communities
Our Creative Communities programme is dedicated to ensuring that all members of the Body & Soul community have access to the healing power of the arts. We unite leading artists with the community in a collaborative process to create ambitious and affirming work.
Creative Communities projects are between 4 – 12 weeks and can focus on one or more art form. From song writing to photography, theatre to pottery, each project is designed to harness the recognition that creativity not only provides opportunity for connection and expression - it can ignite change, renewal, and recovery. You do not need to see yourself as ‘creative’ to get involved, we really believe that everyone is an artist and all you need is a willingness to try!
Previous projects have included:
A community mural making project in partnership with Paint The Change, a leading organisation in creating street art for social justice.
A theatre project with the National Theatre’s Public Acts programme, we were a founding partner of their nationwide initiative to create extraordinary acts of theatre and community.
A dance project in partnership with leading dancer and choreographer Olu Alatise. Olu joined our community to take us on a journey to explore the power of movement and storytelling through the joy of Afrobeats.
Mindset Team
Mindset is Body & Soul’s digital resource to support young people with their mental health where we share, practise and discuss how DBT skills can create balance in the everyday. What makes Mindset special is that content is created by YANA graduates, drawing wisdom from lived experience and insights post DBT group.
Here are some themes we’ve covered so far:
Demystifying myths around neurodiversity
Discussion on Mental Health Diagnoses
‘Check the Facts’ Office
What to eat when you’re sad and hungry
If you’re missing your weekly DBT fix, then this is the place to go! Joining the Mindset team is a great way to consolidate your DBT skills and an avenue to explore content creation.
Follow the social media handles below to browse the library of content!
Instagram: @sharethemindset
TikTok: @sharethemindset
YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/sharethemindset
Therapies Support
1:1 therapy is a small part of the wider community, connection and healing you can access at Body & Soul. However, it is an option if you feel that some 1:1 work would be useful to address a specific issue in your life, to help you to work on your confidence or self-esteem, or perhaps to have a space of your own to feel heard, listened to or even a space to relax.
There’s a whole range of therapies on offer at Body & Soul, from integrative counselling to complementary therapies like acupuncture or reiki, we also have a nutritionist offering sessions on a 1:1 basis. All therapies at Body & Soul require 100% commitment, much like the YANA programme. If more than 2 appointments in a row are missed, this would result in a conversation with us and your being put back onto the waiting list.
All our members are welcome to enquire about any of our therapies on offer, although we recommend that you do not look into talking therapies until at least 6 months after graduating from DBT Group, as it’s helpful to give yourself this time to experience what it’s like applying the skills to your day-to-day life first.
