“As a child I was always quite unsociable; the quiet one and introverted, but I’m definitely more confident with talking to people now” – YP
“I think we’ve all done brilliantly because we’ve been treated like professionals. We all worked together and that made the performance even better” – YP
Icon Theatre combined raising awareness of the Six Ways to Wellbeing with arts participation through a number of workshops, a summer school and a community festival. Throughout this time, young people and residents were encouraged to make pledges to implement at least one way to wellbeing in their lives.
“If my kids weren’t doing this, they’d be on the streets” – Parent
Icon Theatre worked with schools and community organisations to give 360 vulnerable young people the opportunity to get involved with one of twelve taster workshops. The workshops resulted in 83 young people taking park in a two and a half week Performing Arts Summer School giving the participants a taster in dance, drama, music and design workshops. The summer school culminated in a final performance devised by the young people.
The success of the final performance is attributed to the young people and their collaborative working. Parents, carers and friends commented that they had been ‘in awe’ at the quality of the performance.
Through the Six Ways to Wellbeing festival, Icon Theatre engaged with over 560 local residents and raised awareness of wellbeing within the wider community. The festival offered residents dance, drama, music and design workshops accompanied with discussions around mental health and wellbeing.
‘Head to the future, reflect back the past, reject the darkness inside of you, protect the ones you love’ – lyrics to a song composed by a participant
“I think the six ways is all kind of one thing that helps our wellbeing. It’s to help make us happier so if we do those things we can lead a healthy and happy life” - YP
Icon Theatre identified 30 Wellbeing Champions who had developed an excellent knowledge and understanding of the Six Ways to Wellbeing. 52 young people worked towards and completed a Bronze Arts Award.
Confidence amongst the young people grew significantly with 87% identifying a ‘very significant’ increase in their confidence. Each young person who attended the programme was able to identify at least 3 ways they had positively changed their lives.
