Leaps and Bounds – Using ballet to empower young people
Key contact: David Harrold
Address: Studio 12, Redhouse Glass Cone, High Street, Wordsley, West Midlands, DY8 4AZ
Telephone: 07717700768
Email: Dave@lnb.org.uk
Web address: www.lnb.org.uk
Leaps and Bounds in a nutshell
At Leaps and Bounds, we bring together the private, public and voluntary sectors to transform the lives of young people.
We combine life-coaching skills and powerful personal development training with a unique ballet experience.
This profile is about one of our projects – Ballet Hoo - which was completed in 2006.
The issues addressed
Young people who are surrounded by unhealthy lifestyles, ill health and low income often have little motivation and few opportunities to change the course they are on.
We think that these young people much more potential than they think they have. We think that ballet is an excellent way of showing them how they can change their lives and take a full part in the opportunities that lie ahead.
The approach to the issues
We believe that all young people have a future, no matter what their past experiences are. We want to encourage and coach young people to re-invent themselves and choose to live and work responsibly within society. We do this by offering more than ‘just’ an exciting and demanding opportunity to perform with Birmingham Royal Ballet.
For Ballet Hoo, we selected a group of young people aged between 15 and 18. They were assigned a life coach with whom they learnt new skills to help them get their lives back on track. First we focused on personal development. The participants and their coaches explored issues taken from Romeo and Juliet within the context of their own lives. These sessions also looked at dance, drama, design and the technical aspects of ballet performances. Then we trained the young people (and some of the coaches) for a performance of Prokoviev's musical ballet Romeo and Juliet.
Setting up the work
We started by setting up a partnership between four local authorities - Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Birmingham. Together with the Learning and Skills Council and Connexions they oversaw and managed the work.
Other organisations, such as Birmingham Royal Ballet, Youth at Risk and Diverse Productions then joined our partnership.
We put together an operational and artistic team to run the project. Then we started recruiting the young people and life coaches and got the project up and running.
Evidence of success
We have seen remarkable changes in young people who have participated in our project. Our work has helped them progress onto further education and employment and changed their outlook and behaviour. For example:
• their self-belief have increased
• many have developed listening skills and are better able to interact with other people
• one person who used to live in foster care is now living independently and is training to be a youth worker
• another person has gone on to study A levels in drama and performing arts and joined the National Youth Theatre.
One participant suffered with severe dyslexia and was living in a condemned house with 13 other young people. He loved dancing and has now joined a youth dance group because of our work. He is now taking this further and has gone to college to do performing arts.
One great thing – Joined up working
Our work would not have been so successful had it not been for the support from our partners. For example, the local authorities:
• project managed the work
• dedicated 80 youth professionals in supporting access to the programme
• made links to other services – tying the whole project into other services available to young people.
And together with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, we managed to extend dance training to young people who would not have thought of this before - allowing ballet to make a positive contribution to young people’s lives.
Lessons learnt
• It is important to keep your mind open and not to be judgmental towards anyone involved in your work.
• It is unnecessary to be authoritative – respect young people’s views and try to speak to them with same level of language.
• It is important to build strong partnerships. Our partners brought a range of resources and experienced staff to help us with our work.
