Creative Facilitation: transforming women's lives through theatre

Clean Break’s Creative Facilitation training focuses on using theatre practices to safely bring creativity into women only groups and spaces.

Participants will gain the tools they need to deliver theatre workshops with people who have experienced trauma, or to bring creative interventions to their group work or 1-to-1 sessions with clients.

This one-day training is for anyone who works with, or is interested in working with people in challenging or vulnerable circumstances, and wants to safely bring creativity into their practice. You could be a groupworker, facilitator, theatre maker, or frontline practitioner of any kind.

Through a mixture of interactive exercises, group work and discussion, our Creative Facilitation training provides participants with the space to build their confidence as facilitators and develop a rich toolkit to improve their practice. This session covers:

• Clean Break’s approach: Understand the foundational principles that drive Clean Break’s work.
• Safer Spaces: Develop your approach to holding spaces from Clean Break’s trauma-informed practice.
• Boundary Setting: Learn effective techniques for setting and maintaining boundaries.
• Inclusive practice: Build an anti-oppressive framework for holding women-only spaces.
• Challenging Situations: Develop and rehearse the skills to navigate challenging situations with women in vulnerable circumstances.
• Unlocking Potential: Explore transformative creative exercises designed to support women in reaching their full potential.

For over four decades, Clean Break has been working creatively with women with lived experience of the criminal justice system or who are at risk of entering it. The only organisation of its kind, we use tools from the world of theatre to help women build confidence, self-esteem and gain new skills.

Our work in the theatre, criminal justice and women’s sectors gives us a valuable and unique perspective on the power creativity holds to change lives, when practiced safely by trained facilitators.

The day will be facilitated by Clean Break’s Artistic Director, Anna Herrmann, and Participation Manager, Sophie Connolly.

Anna Herrmann is Artistic Director of Clean Break. She has been working in the field of theatre and social change for thirty years, specialising in theatre and participation in the UK and abroad. She has been with Clean Break since 2002 as the Head of Education, leading the company’s award-winning work with women in the criminal justice system and women at risk of entering it. With Clean Break she has directed Through This Mist (co-directed with Róisín McBrinn), Sweatbox (national tour and film), Not Pretty Like The Rainbow (national tour), Catch (national tour) and Scenes from Lost Mothers (national tour). In July 2020 Anna was elected as Co-chair of the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance, stepping down in July 2022.

Sophie Connolly is the Participation Manager at Clean Break. She leads Clean Break's Members Programme and its work in Women's Centers across London. Prior to this, she has worked as a facilitator for over a decade in violence against women and girls, domestic violence, serious youth violence, gangs and countylines, with a particular specialism in working with young people in People Referral Units/Alternative Provisions and Youth Offending Service settings. She has also worked extensively in the world of arts and disabilities. Sophie studied at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London where she trained in Drama, Applied Theatre and Education.

**A limited number of bursary places are available to anyone who has direct personal lived experience of the criminal justice system (not professional experience).

To apply for these, please get in touch explaining how you are eligible (without disclosing sensitive personal information) and expressing your interest in the training event.

Bursary places are limited and are awarded on a first-come-first-served basis. These places are intended for participants with low or no income.

Please send your request to [email protected] marking your email with BURSARY REQUEST in the subject heading, at least four weeks ahead of the training date.

This training is open to participants who are women (this includes cis, intersex, and trans women)

If you have any access requirements you would like us to be aware of, please contact [email protected] and let us know.

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