Yoga Health Connect CIC (YHC) supports the wider application and adoption of yoga therapy and therapeutic yoga as a key health intervention within the professional health and medical sector. YHC delivers yoga therapy solutions to individuals and health professionals throughout Wales and the UK to support mental and physical wellbeing. YHC aims to empower individuals who have a health condition and their health professionals to make confident choices when seeking therapeutic yoga and yoga therapy in their communities. YHC has offered a new person-centred mind-body yoga therapy service to the community in the Cardiff area. On 6 January 2025 YHC received a National Lottery Community Fund Award of £20,000 and have since worked to create and deliver a trauma-informed yoga therapy programme to support women who experience depression, stress and anxiety to improve their physical & mental health. YHC are currently working in conjunction with another values-based organisation (CCAWS - Community Care and Wellbeing Service) who offer professional counselling services in Cardiff. CCAWS identified a gap in mind & body-based therapy provision for their clients and have acted as a formal referral partner for this programme in collaboration with their counselling health professionals. The programme includes person-centred one-to-one assessment and group therapy tailored to client goals. A comprehensive monitoring and evaluation model has been developed and links set up to further support this with Cardiff University School of Health Sciences, to further build the evidence base supporting good practice and research showing the impact arising from yoga therapy. In the case of this programme, people receiving counselling and movement-based therapy show significant improvements in symptoms, including lower anxiety levels and reductions in depressive symptoms. The activities of YHC have benefited the community in various ways including seeing sustained improvements in clients’ mental health, reduction of the negative repercussions of poor mental health and an improvement in quality-of-life for women accessing this project. 14 women have undertaken 1:1 yoga therapy assessment where a therapeutic relationship has been developed. 6 women have completed a course of group therapy and there have been sustained mental health improvements upon monitoring and evaluation 8 weeks after course completion. Benefits for the women include: learning to independently use personalised yoga and mindfulness tools to make changes in their daily lives, being brought together to build supportive relationships and develop new skills, becoming more empowered and resilient, a growing confidence, having a stronger sense of purpose and consolidating holistic mind-body awareness, achieving their long-term goals by the end of the course, experiencing improved cognitive clarity (including during menopause), increased functional movement and breath patterns, utilising skills and understanding gained through body-based therapy leading to a reduction in their need for GP and mental health services

YHC’s stakeholders are individuals with health conditions in receipt of health care services and the organisations through which individuals access the health care services. This year CCAWS and CCAWS clients referred into the yoga programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund Award have been YHC’s main stakeholder. The YHC Directors understand there is a range of yoga available in the Cardiff area, throughout Wales and the UK, however, the potential to apply yoga therapy is significantly underutilised as an integrated health care option for clients with more complex health needs. Having 25 years of yoga teaching experience between them, the directors consult with their Cardiff based students on a regular basis (approx.100 people); national health organisations and yoga networks/member organisations/regulatory organisations that they are allied with. From their experience and training the directors understand there are significant gaps in the provision of yoga when people have more complex health conditions. This prevents people accessing benefits from yoga therapy to access rehabilitative/transformative effects of yoga within daily life for sustained change and self-efficacy. YHC has worked directly with clients who are keyed into local community services and those receiving support from third sector services/health care providers, to offer suitable therapeutic yoga based on their client’s identified needs. Client consultation has also included analysis of questionnaires, focus groups and interview data. Clients were questioned about their specific needs at the start of the yoga therapy programme, feedback at the end, and 6-8 weeks after the programme finished. YHC has consulted with NHS community providers and GP cluster groups in the Cardiff area, Trade Unions, academics and health professionals at Cardiff University and third sector organisations including Mind Cymru, Arthritis UK, Parkinsons UK, to understand how yoga therapy can actively support the health sector and those in receipt of health care services. YHC has worked in conjunction with other values-based organisation including CCAWS and their counsellor health specialists to design an appropriate service with CCAWS clients and achieve the most impactful outcomes possible for the individuals receiving the yoga therapy service. This partnership has been informed by consultation that CCAWS undertook with their clients and referral requests for one-to-one support (269 people in an 8-month period in 2024). Women accessing CCAWS services have experienced trauma, stress, depression, panic, relationship issues, sexual/domestic abuse.

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