KATE POTTER (19) - Youth Advisory Board - Theatre for Life CIC
Community Outreach actress & workshop leader
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Credits: ROLE PLAY SIMULATED PATIENT TRAINING PROGRAMME UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, SOUTHAMPTON |
One of my biggest passions is making Theatre more accessible to everyone, I believe that no matter who you are and what your background is, you should have the opportunity to enjoy the arts. I’m also incredibly supportive of using the arts to support mental health provision, helping to open up conversations and explore issues creatively.
Through Theatre for Life I took part in the Southampton Generals Simulated Patient Programme and took on the role of a young girl with ADHD who had taken a substance, suspected speed, and had a terrible reaction. It was such a good opportunity and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Being in that environment was super intense but it was such an interesting and eye opening day. It also opened my eyes to how POWERFUL theatre is to explore important subject matters, which is why being apart of Theatre for Life is a great opportunity.
It was particularly rewarding working for the NHS and using theatre to support training. I’m also really looking forward to performing to professionals from the NHS and CAMHS during our community outreach performance at Cantell School in Southampton as part of our Youth Social action work.
Being apart of Silent Mind and exploring mental health awareness and wellbeing has been such a supportive journey, it has allowed me to open up within my group and with the audiences we reach. It’s so great to be able to suggest ideas, liaise with community groups and plan how we will reach even more people with this important piece. Our planning meetings are so positive and productive, it’s such a great process to be apart of and I love working with the other group members.
My role at Theatre for Life is focused on helping to support the community outreach programme, particularly on improving accessibility so we can reach as many young people as possible.
We are really excited that we have also started to explore how we can also use our work to support education and health professionals. This year we performed Silent Mind as a CPD at Redbridge School, we are also performing at Bay House Sixth Form and Brune Park Community School in the new year. It was so insightful to perform our work to teachers and to gain feedback on our work.
Very moving... I feel that young and old would benefit from seeing this, it helped to visualise the most confusing internal emotions .The workshops put the performance into context and gave resources for more information.
Enlightening and emotionally engaging. A very meaningful message and a worthy cause, keep up the good work!
It was very insightful - offering a glimpse unto mental health issues affecting our young people and useful techniques to help support them
I’m excited to see how we can continue to support young people and organisations such as the NHS with Silent Mind, I’m particularly looking forward to creating our new version in 2020, focusing on new stories with new coping strategies.
UPCOMING EVENTS -
As a team we have been working super hard to create some engaging community workshops using the arts to support mental health awareness and wellbeing.
As part of my Youth leadership role and our community outreach we would like to offer FREE tickets to 14-25 year olds to our upcoming Drama and Vlog workshop on the 25th January from 10.30-3.30 at the City Art Gallery in Southampton.
Here is an outline of our Vlog workshop:
We will be using Drama techniques to teach young people about empowerment, we want to define what this is and how best to support ourselves, exploring how stereotypes affect our self-esteem and what constitutes a positive role model.
Working with a professional Vlogger / film maker young people will have the opportunity to learn skills on how to use their smart phone to create powerful and compelling vlogs.
*We are particularly interested in working with young people aged 14-25 years old with limited access to the arts in the SOUTHAMPTON area*
*We are particularly interested in working with young people aged 14-25 years old with limited access to the arts in the SOUTHAMPTON area*
