Robyn Lewis

Robyn Lewis is a Canberra-based yoga teacher/yoga therapist and small business owner (Yoga Enlightenment). Robyn has a background as a high school teacher and public sector senior manager. She teaches accessible yoga on the mat and chair in a wide range of face to face and online settings including public, schools, correctional facilities, corporate, aged care/dementia and with 1:1 clients.

Robyn trains yoga teachers to teach accessible chair yoga in a 50 hour professional development program that she developed in 2016. She has trained around 90 yoga teachers from around Australia and New Zealand to deliver yoga classes to vulnerable and under-served populations. Robyn is currently undertaking a PhD researching models of dementia care at the University of Canberra. Robyn's PhD is sponsored by Community Home Australia.

Robyn's Churchill Fellowship (2020) was to explore the use of yoga in Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (CST), a psycho-social, evidence-based program for people with mild to moderate dementia.

Since completing her Churchill Fellowship in 2022, Robyn has initiated an Australian CST Working Group including service providers and academics across Australia. The Working Group has met bi-monthly since October 2022 and seeks to improve access to CST in Australia. Through collaboration with CST Master Trainers from New Zealand who Robyn worked with in her Churchill Fellowship exploration, a CST facilitator training was held in Melbourne in June 2023. An Australian Master Trainer has now been appointed, so CST facilitator training will be held annually, with the next training to be held in Sydney in September 2024.

Robyn has submitted a successful abstract for a remote poster for the International CST Conference in Hong Kong in June 2024. The poster will provide an overview of the process undertaken to establish the Australian CST Working Group. This process is of interest to other countries and Robyn has assisted the CST team from Africa to create a similar network of professionals interested in CST.

Robyn is currently contributing to an application for Distinguished Visitor through the University of Canberra to support a visit to Australia in November 2025 by Professor Aimee Spector (University College London) who established CST. Robyn visited Prof Spector during her Churchill Fellowship travel in June 2022.