Dr Lala Manners on the Power of Movement

Dr Lala Manners has enjoyed a long and varied career promoting the importance of early years movement development and physical activity. She has worked as a consultant, teacher, writer, researcher, and educator both in the UK and internationally.

She has designed and delivered a range of accredited courses for speech language therapists, Early Years students, practitioners, and more. She’s also the creator of Active Matters an authoritative website focused on all aspects physical development.

Dr Manner’s book The Early Years Movement Handbook was published in 2019 and in 2020, 50 Fantastic Ideas for Getting Children Active was published by Bloomsbury. The latest course she’s written is for the Open University and is called ‘Supporting Physical Development in Early Childhood’ and is on the Futurelearn platform.

Recently, Dr Manners has been working with the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) on supporting and improving the wellbeing of their workforce and children.

In this interview Dr Manners explains the types of movements that children need to thrive and how this affects children’s and adult’s mental wellbeing. She also describes how the physiology of adults and children differ and why it’s important.

We also discuss the benefits of working with the workforce and children at LEYF, as well as Dr Manner’s Open University course ‘Supporting Physical Development in Early Childhood’.

Links:

You can find the Open University course here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/supporting-physical-development-early-childhood

https://www.activematters.org/

https://leyf.org.uk/

Suggested reading: More Than a Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament (2021) by Dr Lindsay Kite and Dr Lexie Kite

You can buy the e-book Think Feel Do: A Wellbeing Handbook for Early Years Staff by June O’Sullivan and Dr Lala Manners here: https://amzn.to/3tQqg5y