Girls Growing in Wellness and Balance: Yoga and Life Skills to Empower
(Cook-Cottone, Kane, Keddie, & Haugli, 2013)
The first published counseling prevention program to use yoga as a primary method for promoting health and wellness among developing girls.
Girls Growing in Wellness and Balance teaches girls how to live healthy and balanced lives that nurture the whole self. The authors developed and refined the program over the course of ten years in schools, after-school programs, yoga studios, and summer programs. The program is based on an adapted, preventative form of cognitive-behavioral and dialectic behavioral therapy for youth, and composed of fourteen easy-to-follow, group sessions that integrate ideas, activities, and yoga for girls ages 9–18.
Key Features
An Experiential Program to Empower Teenage Girls
Girls Growing in Wellness and Balance follows a protocol which is experiential and didactic in nature. Program activities support skills such as critical thinking, emotional intelligence, assertiveness, and self-regulation.
An Integrative Approach to Self-Regulation and Self-Care
This book presents a program that includes yoga, guided relaxation, meditation, journaling, and group sessions. It teaches self-regulation, integration of thoughts and feelings to make choices, and self-care.
An Empirically Supported Eating Disorder Prevention Program
Studies of this program show reduction in eating disorder risk and eating disorder symptoms (Scime & Cook-Cottone, 2008; Scime, Cook-Cottone, Kane, & Watson, 2006). Research analysis showed that the program was equally effective for girls identified as minorities and those who were not (Cook-Cottone, Jones, & Haugli, 2010).
