WHAT WE DO
Theatre Troupe works with children and young people with mental health problems as a result of adverse childhood experiences, transforming lives through the radical nature of participatory theatre. Through community programmes and projects in schools, health and social care settings, our research-based work is designed to reduce distress, increase self-esteem, build safe and trusting relationships, and create brighter futures.
When you join a troupe, you become part of a creative family, in which children, staff, and volunteer mentors work together to make a show. Every child has the chance to work in the artform they like best, whether this is drama and performance or the more backstage work of art and design, creative writing or music.
Our work is based on a specialist methodology: the Theatre Troupe Model. Developed as a research project at Queen Mary University London, it draws on Attachment Theory, and neurobiological attunement. There are four “ingredients” that make our work effective:
- Being part of a family- like community which supports the building of positive relationships, the inter-connected experience of creating theatre together and a sense of belonging.
- A trauma-informed approach in which we recognise the dysregulation that comes from difficult experiences and work with it to reduce hyper-arousal and have a safe space to relax
- A process of attunement, particularly with individual mentors, in which children work alongside adults to create arts work together, and stand alongside each other in practical activities
- Taking part in a theatre production: Whether this is on the stage, or behind the scenes, children work together to build a production or film to share with important people in their life, building self-esteem, confidence and a chance to be proud.
WHO WE WORK WITH
We are committed to working with children who are often excluded from multiple opportunities due to behaviour or distressing emotions, or family circumstances preventing them from taking part, such as parental illness or parents’ working patterns. We work with children who :
- Have experienced abuse and neglect in the family home or community
- Have witnessed domestic violence
- Have experienced bullying
- Are young carers due to parental or sibling physical/mental illness or addiction
- Are Looked After
- Have experiened child criminal or sexual exploitation
- Have suffered distress due to being neurodiverse. Approximately 40% of all our participants have autism, ADHD, dyslexia or dyspraxia
Because we have high support – one-to-one mentoring and an art therapist on our team – we are able to offer intervention to those with acute and complex needs. This includes children who have low mood, , anxiety, PTSD and other diagnosed conditions, self-harm, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.