Past Outreach Workshops

Face to Face - Bridgend Launch Event
Performance date: March 12th 2009

Face 2 Face is a national network of trained volunteer befrienders who can help parents make positive adjustments to the news that their child has a disability.

Every Face 2 Face befriender is a parent too - someone whose own child has a disability. They know what it's like to cope with a new diagnosis and can offer support parent-to-parent.

We were asked to create some forum theatre style scenes which would depict the need for Face to Face for the launch of the Face to Face befrienders scheme in Bridgend. To do this I met with carers in Bridgend who were being trained as befrienders. All of them had stories about how their life would have been helped if they had had access to an organisation such as Face to Face. There were many, many stories, but in the end I chose to focus on 3 ideas to develop into scenes.

The scenes followed the story of one mother from diagnosis by an ill informed and unhelpful doctor, to some bad advice from a friend, to a visit from a pushy speech therapist. We then worked with three professional actors to create the scenes. The actors were Bethan Morgan, Lisa Harris and Rhys Ap Trefor. Each of these actors also brought with them experience of disability and learning disability, in their family and through working with the learning disabled community. Their experience was also valuable in feeding into the development of the scenes.

After a couple of day's rehearsal the scenes were ready to be presented at the Launch Event on the 12th March. The scenes were extremely well received, creating a lively discussion on the need for Face to Face and the challenges to parents.