Our Team

Joanne Spence

Guest Teacher

Joanne Spence is a recovering social worker and certified yoga therapist. She is the executive director of Yoga in Schools. She has over 15 years of experience teaching therapeutic yoga to children and their teachers. She trains and teaches all sorts of interesting people, both nationally and internationally, to teach yoga to children. Additionally, she teaches yoga in prisons, hospitals, schools, churches and sometimes street corners. Her sub-specialties are treating adults and children with chronic pain, trauma, depression, anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia. Joanne has over 30 years of clinical experience, ten of those years as the first yoga therapist at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic. Currently, she is in private practice (Urban Oasis Pittsburgh) and she also works with veterans on several behavioral health units in Pittsburgh, PA teaching therapeutic chair yoga.

Joanne has been married for 30 years and has 2 adult children and one teen – all of whom practice yoga! When she is not teaching, Joanne loves to read, write, hike, travel, cook and even dance a little – just not all at the same time.