About Us

Body & Soul is an innovative charity that uses a comprehensive, community-based and trauma informed approach to address the life-threatening effects of childhood adversity in people of all ages.

In 1996 Body & Soul was established to address the gap in HIV services that provided targeted support for children, young people, and families. We have developed a ‘whole person’ model of care rooted in a strengths based approach that nurtures connection, healing and growth.

Our approach is evidence based and informs all that we do. We take a systemic and humanistic approach that is collaborative and solution focused. Through building members’ protective factors we promote and develop resiliency, interrupt latent vulnerability and transform lives.

There is a substantial body of research showing that the stress associated with adverse childhood experiences can have life-long consequences for health and well-being. According to the World Health Organization, “such stress can lead to serious problems such as alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, unsafe sex, HIV/AIDS, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases”.

Compassionate spaces are created both within ourselves and within Body & Soul. Our ‘whole person approach’ brings cohesion back to someone’s life that has been fragmented by trauma.

Our values

“In many ways, Body & Soul has changed and grown over the past two decades, but the work we do is still underpinned by three fundamental values: bravery, love and wisdom. Everything we do follows from these, and they will continue as the bedrock of the work we do into the future.”

– Emma Colyer MBE, director of Body & Soul