Children and Young People

In November of 2020, I embarked on a five week educational workshop programme with young people from York Theatre Royal on the topic of Gender, Identity and Teenage life. This theme was chosen as we felt it is neglected in mainstream education and is vital for young people to explore their identities and be provided with support and knowledge around the topic. As charity Stonewall states, “Every young person deserves to see themselves, their family, and the full diversity of our world reflected in their curriculum. This includes teaching about LGBTQ+ identities and issues”. (Stonewall, 2019). Throughout this process, we aimed and achieved to create a safe space for the young people to be completely themselves, to explore their own identity, express feelings and experiences comfortably, and create connections with each other.

We held the first of our five workshops at York St John University, however due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the other four took place over the online platform 'Zoom' during a national lockdown. This required us to adapt our workshop plans to fit an online platform, which proved to be a challenge. Exercises involving group work were very limited as everyone was in separate spaces and you're unable to talk as a large group on Zoom. This meant we weren't able to make as deep of a connection with the young people as we would have hoped and the young people themselves weren't as able to form strong relationships with one another. Even individual exercises were limited as many required a lot of space for movement, which some participants didn't have at home. We also found that the energy in the 'space' was really low and hard to elevate at times. At first this was disheartening, however after self-reflection, this low energy response from the group was not a reflection of our material. The young people have spent nearly a year under lockdown restrictions with all school and leisure activities online, so it would have been really difficult for them to engage in any material after such an emotionally and physically draining time. To combat all of these challenges, we endeavoured to do all we could to deliver fun, engaging and educational workshops to the young people. This involved:

• Catering material towards their passions, likes, and dislikes to ensure tasks were relevant an were around current issues.

• Getting up on our feet as much as possible to avoid huge drops in energy.

• Having strong attunement, reading the 'room' and changing plans on the spot to suit the needs of the participants at the time. As Hepplewhite states, "having good attunement means a facilitator can listen well, accommodate moods and the group atmosphere, and respond to individuals and the energies of the workshop" (Hepplewhite in Preston, 2016: 177).

• Allowing for comfort breaks.

• Creating a safe atmosphere where participants feel comfortable to acknowledge their emotions and have choice to participate in exercises.

• Overall make the workshops fun and uplifting.

The set of workshops were a triumph for both us as facilitators, and for the young people. One of the main reasons for its success for us was how we gelled as a group of co-facilitators and let each other show our strengths in workshops. Co-facilitation works well as "the co-responsibility of groups is shared, but equally there are additional benefits as co-facilitators can offer different modes or influences in a group" (Balfour in Preston, 2016: 157). The workshops were a success for the young people involved as they gained education on the themes of gender, identity, sexuality and other teen issues, and felt able to share their feelings and experiences with the rest of the group. They also created a deeper connection with one another and stated at the end of the process that they had gained friends which fulfilled all our aims as facilitators. And although this process was a challenge, we found that “even at a distance, drama training can still be vibrant, engaging, energising and extremely rewarding” (Trefor-Jones, 2020: vii).

This module gave me the first stepping stones to my career as a creative arts practitioner as I explored many basic techniques and skills needed for successful workshops and was therefore able to take them forward in later modules to then advance my skills as a facilitator. It also gave me confidence in my practice and allowed me to acknowledge that I have a talent for facilitation.