Restoration Now: A Session of Power Yoga + Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Techniques

Christine Gerchow, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist, Program Director at the University of California, Berkeley, registered yoga teacher (RYT) and the founder and director of Frontline Psychological Services & Wellness, Inc. (FPS&W). FPS&W provides America's frontline public servants with research-guided and participant-informed trainings, consultation and workshops about performance optimization, resilience, psychophysiological stress management, and traumatology.  Prior to her work at UC Berkeley, Dr. Gerchow was the Behavioral Health Team Lead at a John A. Davis Juvenile Hall, a maximum-security juvenile detention facility in the San Francisco Bay Area. While at juvenile hall, Dr. Gerchow created the institution's insomnia and sleep disturbance response protocol; launched trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) groups and instituted a sensory-processing, trauma-informed mindfulness and meditation class for adolescent males in a court ordered, long-term treatment program. She taught evidence-based classes including Aggression Replacement Training (ART) - Skill Streaming and Anger Control. Dr. Gerchow also successfully advocated for an enrollment expansion of juvenile hall's internship program, supervised predoctoral trainees, and led internship curriculum development. As a doctoral student at UC Berkeley, Dr. Gerchow's dissertation, 'Evaluating the Impact of Two Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Programs on Recidivism in Chronic Juvenile Offenders,' was the first evaluation of the county's Youthful Offender Treatment Program (YOTP).  She recently co-authored an article about cross-disciplinary collaboration and effective provision of behavioral health services in juvenile detention facilities and presented about her sensory-processing, trauma informed mindfulness classes at the Coalition for Juvenile Justice (CJJ) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. Dr. Gerchow has delivered innumerable trainings and workshops, didactic and experiential, to audiences including educators, law enforcement processionals, social workers, nurses, attorneys, and other frontline public employees. She is currently designing a multi-module training program about performance optimization and trauma-responsiveness for juvenile probation staff. Dr. Gerchow is trained in both power yoga (Core Power - Walnut Creek, CA) and restorative yoga (Square One Yoga Collective- Oakland, CA). In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her family, teaching and participating in yoga, and playing golf.