Gamechangers Established Leaders

photo: we are looking into a large room where people are doing strange poses. In the foreground two people are standing with their legs wide apart. One has their arms out straight in front while the other has their arms folded. A person behind them is holding their arms up and on the shouldon of the front people. We can see someone else in a wheelchair they have one hand on their head while their other hand points off to the floor.

We are currently on half term and sessions will restart on Friday 20th of September.

The Summer Term at Gamechangers was busy!

  • Gamechangers planned and delivered training sessions for medical students from University of Manchester. The students learnt about the Social Model of Disability, Inclusive Practice / Total Communication and the importance of Lived Experience.

Students fed back how welcoming Gamechangers are, and how much they valued the experience of hearing the voices of people with learning disabilities”

  • We were excited to be meeting a leader from Manchester Deaf Centre to talk to us about their lived experience of being part of the D(d)eaf community.
  • The Gamechangers team were of course involved with DIY’s 30th Birthday Celebrations. They planned and hosted the Close Knit Event guiding the audience through the day at The Angel Centre on 21 June. See our news item on our 30th Birthday celebrations.

These are free sessions on Fridays from 10am to 2pm at The Angel Centre in Salford.

DIY gamechangers logo; 'DIY' and 'gamechangers' at the top. Underneath we can see colourful stick figures balancing on each other. The ones at the top are moving the letters of 'gamechangers'

Gamechangers is DIY’s ambitious Leadership Training  programme for leaders with lived experience of learning disability. It is being funded for 3 years by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation. The Gamechangers programme builds on the many years’ leadership development by DIY’s Friday Leadership Group and the experiences and achievements of our Young Leaders initiative, (click to see the report).

What’s it like at DIY Gamechangers?

We hope you like our logo! It represents the friendly and inclusive space that Gamechangers is.

Gamechangers is DIY’s exciting new programme for adults with learning disabilities who want to explore creative leadership skills in an accessible and supportive space.”
Molly, DIY Gamechangers Coordinator

During our Gamechanger Sessions we use drama to explore our own unique leadership identities and how people lead in different ways. Sessions also offer training opportunities, including safeguarding, emergency first aid at work and British Sign Language.

Do you want to join our Gamechangers?

DIY are looking for people who want to develop their creative leadership skills. Find out more by emailing Molly – molly.stedman@diytheatre.org.uk

photo: we can see two women who are standing and look like they are miming a singing into microphones. They look happy and confident.

What happened in the Spring Term?

  • Gamechangers learnt about Signing with Leah Whitton in January.
  • We learnt about freelance status –  what it means to be a freelancer / what is required if you are self-employed.
  • Gamechangers were involved in elements of organising the events for DIY’s 30th Birthday celebrations during Learning Disability Week 2024.

What have Gamechangers done so far?

photo-montage there is a big photo and 4 small round photos. The big picture has a man dressed as a jester floating in the clouds! The round pics each have the face of a different person in them. They are all doing different things.

Representing ourselves as Leaders

In Autumn 2023 Gamechangers launched our brand new leadership profiles to mark Learning Disability History month – see the news story or go straight to the profiles section on our website.

Gamechangers worked with super creative Visual Artist Audrey Albert. She helped us to create images of our individual identities as leaders with some cool and creative props. Find out more about the creative process – Images to represent us as leaders our May ’23 news article.

We are also creating individual leadership portfolios. DIY Leader Becky has already created a fantastic Leadership portfolio full of brilliant ideas and pictures.

Identity and Inclusion

Gamechangers had a really exciting training session focussed on identity in 2023. The session was led by the amazing Lizard from Plaster Cast theatre.

photo: we can see people sitting in a semi circle in a large light filled room. Everyone is looking angry or grumpy - it's not just their faces that tells us this they are using their whole bodies; their hands are forming fists and they look realy wound up!

We covered a lot of ground with Lizard. DIY Gamechangers explored different identities and considered challenging questions about their own identities. In the picture above you can see us showing how angry we are when someone assumes something about our own identities!

Lizard gave us lots of interesting tips on how to represent identities in theatre – particularly the trans community. We also learned how to make workshops inclusive to everyone as well as doing lots of different creative activities exploring this theme. Thankyou Lizard for your brilliant training session.

Safeguarding training with Simon Ruding, PhD FRSA and Director of TiPP in 2023. Simon got us thinking about what it really means to be ‘vulnerable’. We were worried that the training might be difficult to understand but it was ‘fun and enjoyable’!

We can see a big group of people in a big sunny room. They are posing for the camera and some are sitting in wheelchairs and on the floor at the front with others behind. They look happy and some are doing a thumbs up.

In February 2023 DIY Gamechangers had a training session with Simon Ruding from TiPP. We learnt a lot about health and safety and what the word vulnerable means. Members described Simon as ‘fun, reassuring and a bit of a joker’

DBS Checks – Everyone needs to have a DBS check to work with children or vulnerable people. Big thanks to Gill from Salford CVS who helped us to get these done for our Gamechangers.

 

We are very grateful for the support of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation for DIY’s Gamechangers programme.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation logo