Peter Pamphlett and Eve Emsley co-deliver Breaking Down Barriers, a practical workshop that shares lived experience and inclusive practice for dance and creative professionals.
DanceSyndrome’s Breaking Down Barriers is a one-day online workshop for dance and creative industry professionals who want more practical tools to help to make dance and creative spaces more inclusive for people with learning disabilities. The course blends discussion, practical activities and reflection and includes a certificate, downloadable resources and post session materials.
The training is co-delivered by Peter Pamphlett, a Dance Leader who brings lived experience of a learning disability, and Eve Emsley, DanceSyndrome’s Leadership and Inclusion Facilitator. The workshop is designed in line with DanceSyndrome’s co-production model which means that people with lived experience of learning disabilities inform all content creation and delivery to give an authentic learning experience.
Peter brings real life perspectives and 16 years of practical delivery experience with DanceSyndrome. He demonstrates how simple communication techniques and confidence building can make a profound difference to feeling included. Peter co-creates and co-delivers sessions to ensure participants hear directly from someone with lived experience, helping to shift assumptions and change working practice.
Peter said: “I like delivering inclusion training because I want to inspire more people to see how we can work, change their perceptions and help them to think outside the box about how to do things in the way DanceSyndrome does. As a person with lived experience of having a learning disability, I know that when barriers are broken down for me, it means I’m more included in society. I can share this learning with people who join our workshops. We show people how to see new ways of doing things and how to fix problems in ways they might not have thought of before.”
Eve has vast and varied experience of delivering workshops around inclusive practice, leading on co-produced projects, teacher education, community initiatives and managing diverse staff teams. Her facilitation supports people to reflect on everyday barriers people may experience and think through how to put accessible changes in place.
Eve said: “Inclusion, representation, and co-produced services matter. We facilitate spaces for professionals to reflect internally, evaluating their own practice and externally, considering the environments they work and live in. Our workshops offer an insight into what a fairer and more inclusive society could look like, offering space to hear a variety of perspectives.
“We encourage practitioners to start small with implementing changes within their control as we believe small shifts in attitude, behaviour, process, and language can make a big impact in creating environments where people are included.
“Our aim is for our sessions to provoke thought and generate new approaches, informed by lived experience. We encourage participants to arrive as they are, there will be enough space within our delivery for practitioners to feed in questions and discussion points that relate to their practice.”
Why inclusion matters
At DanceSyndrome we know barriers can be physical, informational and attitudinal. Our workshops aim to shine a light on these issues and to plant seeds for long term change. Participants from previous inclusion workshops tell us that they leave ready to take new ideas back to their teams, to role model inclusion and to start changing how their organisations work.
To find out more about Breaking Down Barriers, you can download an information pack on this link. To book a place on the next course on Monday 10th November, please complete the booking form below:
