Jocelyn Townsend

Victoria, Bc

Skills

Work and Volunteer history

Yoga Teacher 

CARSA and FIERCE HEARTS, Victoria, BC Sept 2018-Dec 2020

• Taught a variety of yoga classes based on the company and clientele’s needs.
• built a clientele for myself.
• Worked with students specific physical and learning needs and adapted to those needs in an immediate manner.
• Taught yoga to students with chronic health conditions and disabilities with tailored curriculum to provide them with a supportive lifestyle.

Various studios in Montreal, QC Dec 2011-March 2018

-Creating curriculum and group facilitation that required both structure and mental flexibility to meet maintain a person-based approach to classes.

-creating a safer, culturally sensitive and trauma informed learning space by applying a growth mentality, willingness to learn and trauma informed principals.

-Maintained employment for seven years before moving to British Columbia.

-Worked reception, mindbody, openning and closing, as well as serving customers by helping them make informed decisions about which sales products would best suit their practice, lifestyle and needs.

Big Brothers Big Sisters

Big Sister Jan 2019-March 2020

Big sister to a neurodiverse child and a child in an at risk situation.

• Planning games and projects for kids and being adaptable to their immediate needs.
• Using curiosity and humility to develop confidence and communication skills for children with neurodiversities.
• Reporting back to BigBrothers BigSisters about progresses and set backs.
• learning new craft projects to do with kids.
• Developing trusting mentor/mentee relationships with kids in order to be a  trusted resource if necessary.

Creative Humanizing Project         2019-2020

• wrote academic blog pieces addressing empathy gaps between in and out group members. 
• Grant writing and submission
• Budgeting and foundational research for project planning
• Empathy Project: Facilitated conversations between out-group members through consent based humanizing icebreaker questions and Q&A
• preliminary research in empathy gaps 
• challenged my own beliefs about men with violent histories and what it takes for people could grow.
• advocacy articles for humane treatment within correctional facilities.

Yoga Therapy 2014-ongoing

• working with a population suffering from chronic pain conditions and assisting them in pain management practices.
• Group and private sessions.
• Created my own private practice following trauma informed principals.
• End of life care with a terminally ill client to reduce pain during last months of life.
• Experienced working with clients with Multiple Sclerosis, HIV, digestive disorders, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome/hyper mobility spectrum disorder, and arthritis.

Yoga for Compassion Burnout         2017-2018

– Working with the care takers of endangered species at the Fauna Foundation in maintaining wellness practices for mental, emotional and physical health.

Dog walking and Cat Sitting                   2009-2016

• working with and soothing anxious animals who required meds or special attention when owner was away.

Organizational and outreach skills

Toronto Alt School Alumns and Students United           2021

-Critical role in organizing and working with high school students, staff and generations alumni to save Toronto Alternative schools from budget cuts and ultimately foreclosure.

-Managed facebook page

-Outreach to parents, staff and members

-Collaborative group work

-Offering self-regulation skills and practices to youth advocates.

YOCOMO       2014-2016

Community Outreach Coordinator

• Worked with the Yoga Community of Montreal to help promote the Montreal Yoga Festival.
• Worked at booths to promote the yoga festival.
• interviewed community members for YOCOMO blog and wrote articles.
• Managed the community outreach room at the festival which provided by donation-based workshops for those with limited finances.

The Colour of Her Desire     2015

• wrote and acted a film under the pseudonym “Amelie Bronte” responding to sexual violence within our neighbourhood which was directed by “Laura Glass” for the feminist sex art show she created that attracted hundreds of submissions from across Canada. 
• Worked under the direction of Laura Glass and responded to production feedback during the writing and filming of the short.
• Attended interviews for promotional podcasts which required responding thoughtfully to impromptu questions.
• Helped select the final pieces for the published zine.

Soulpepper Festival               2009

-researched, wrote and acted in a play about the sex trade and human trafficking.

Paprika Festival and Theatre in her Shoes    2007-2008

• wrote, acted in and directed poetry and plays with groups of youth.
• Organizing rehearsals using moodle and online schedulers.

Research and Academia

Peer Reviewer 2017
A Yogi’s Mama Guide: Ayurveda and Your Child by, Jennifer Hardy-Berthiaume. 

• check information and provide feedback for book on Ayurveda

Published Academic Research Articles

1.The Role of Safety in Compassion (2021)
-Self published
2.Creating Empathic Spaces (2020)
-The Creative Humanizing Project
3.The Stories that Define Us (2020)
-Self published
-Reviewed by Sam Redmond (Creative Humanizing Project)
4.Using Ayurvedic Practices in the Treatment of Crohn’s Disease (2015-2016)
-Calfiornia College of Ayurveda

Acclaimed Academic Papers

1.In Defence of Neurophilosophy (2019)
-Philosophy of Mind awarded 9.0
-explains why nuancing folk psychological terminology to be specific to the nervous system is necessary. 

2.Memory or Manipulation (2019)
-English for Academic Writing awarded 8.0 and top grade
-Stipulations towards “false/implanted memory court arguments” against survivors of childhood sexual assault

3.Barriers to inclusivity of dyslexia within post secondary education (2018)
-Psychology of Diversity awarded 9.0
-title is self-explanatory

Education

Worker and Employment skills 

Psychological Safety in the Work Place- online seminar (June 2021)

Spoon Theory Self-Care and Work (June 2021)

Neil Squire job readiness program (2021)

Women in progress Job readiness program (2021)

University and High school

Two years BSc Psychology University of Victoria (2018—ongoing)
taking a break for personal reasons

Two years BFA in Theatre at Concordia University (2009-2011)

Inglenook Community High school graduated with Honours (2007)

Yoga, therapeutic certifications and continual education

Two year distance learning program Ayurvedic Medicine (2013-2016)

—Certified Ayurvedic Educator and Practitioner which includes studies in the human biological systems, western diseases and different cultural perspectives on disease and treatment.
—Level 1 body work (Abyanga+Shirodhara)
—Published paper on Ayurvedic treatments for Crohn’s Disease

Training at United Yoga with Hart Lazar and Donna Read (2015-2016)

—Hart Lazar is an Iyengar teacher. His training consists of extensive prop use, adjustments, and systematically teaching alignment from the base up.
—Hart Lazar has a psychology background and taught us to apply Peter Levine and Bessel Von Der Kolk’s work about using yoga to help trauma survivors and what to signs to look for that a person might present with traumatized nervous system. 

**Completed 220 hr of 300 hrs (due to death in family) but it was my forth training and I only missed sequencing** 

300hr Yoga Therapeutics Training at Re:Source Yoga (2013-2015)

—Case Studies in Yoga for digestive disorders, myofascial release and strengthening, continuing studies on active listening, chronic pain and person based-approaches.

200 hrs Vinyasa/Hatha Training at Pacific Elements (April 2012)

—Pacific Elements is a Yoga School founded and ran by former Anusara inspired teacher,Natalie Horscroft Rousseau. Focus on teaching and communication skills and anatomy.

500 Moksha Yoga Teacher Training (October 2011)

Important Workshops Taken 

A Year to Go Much Deeper (Jan 2012-December 2012)

A year long 100 hour course with Hart Lazar at United Yoga to deepen self-understanding and self-care practices.

Iyengar Workshop with Kevin Gardener (Spring 2013)

-Forward folds, side bends and inversions

4 month Yogic Lifestyle Coaching Program (jan 2013-april 2013)
—Worked with Natalie Rousseau to develop and integrate Ayurveda into my life
—Practitioner of Ayurveda at the California College of Ayurveda 2013-2016

Noah Maze Workshop at Moksha Yoga Montreal (2015)
—Vinyasa Krama– class planning and sequencing: Inversions, backbends and forward folds.

Inversion workshop with Amy Ippoliti (2016)

Your Brain on Yoga:—The affects of yoga postures on the central and autonomic nervous system (2016)

Level Three Practice at Shri Yoga (april 2012-june 2016)
—Attended level three iyengar classes weekly for four years.

Classes with Robin Golt in Anusara Yoga and Kaismere Shaivism (sept 2016-2017)