Friday group

A Question of Leadership from DIY Theatre Company on Vimeo.

DIY’s Friday Group is an experienced group of adult leaders with learning disabilities who specialise in planning and delivering Arts and Health projects.
Our activities since March 2020 have moved onto Zoom but we are still busy creating films and other resources to support Arts and Health projects.

Health and Wellbeing

Friday Group have been exploring how drama supports the ‘5 Ways to Wellbeing’. Originally developed by the New Economics Foundation (nef), these are behaviours which have been shown to support both our physical and mental wellbeing. (Visit the nef website for more information.)

The 5 Ways to Wellbeing are:

  • Connect . . . connect with the people around you. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.
  • Be active . . . Go for a walk, play a game, dance. Most importantly, discover a physical activity you enjoy and one that suits your level of mobility and fitness.
  • Take notice . . . Be curious, be aware of what is around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.
  • Keep Learning . . . Try something new or rediscover an old interest. Take on a new responsibility. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun.
  • Give . . . Help others. Do something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Say thankyou.

'Change places if you don't like spiders' screen shot from one of DIY's leadership videos, showing Becky making her hand into a spider

Visit DIY’s YouTube Channel for drama games which develop the 5 Ways to Wellbeing

As part of our work online we are sharing some drama games that we often play as part of Friday group. Each game supports one or more of the 5 ways. You can access these on DIY’s YouTube channel – click the link here – Why not try out one of the games and have a think about which of the 5 ways this develops?

Training for Professionals

Over the past two years DIY has been working regularly with Manchester University to deliver a module focusing on arts and health to medical students.

Really great group learnt a lot. Was a pleasure to attend.”
Student feedback
As part of this module we have worked practically with 4th and 5th year medical students to introduce areas including the 5 outcomes for health and well-being and social prescribing. Through a range of drama exercises we have explored with them how the social model of health complements the medical model of health.
I have learnt a lot about using non-verbal performance, the use of instruments, textures when interacting in a group & performance.”
Student feedback

Conferences & Networking Events

The Friday Group also runs workshops at Conferences and events. In October 2019, for example, we ran a session at The Creative Therapies Conference ‘All the worlds a stage, celebrating our creativity from cradle to grave,’ at Salford University. The event was aimed at professionals and students in the field of counselling psychotherapy and community arts.
Our workshop called ‘Movement through the Life Stages’ explored how DIY use drama games to support health and well-being. Friday Group members invited delegates to look in depth at the 5 Ways to Well-being by introducing a series of games which gave delegates the opportunity to reflect on how the 5 Ways affects both their own and others’ health and well-being.
“Thank you to DIY for coming to present a workshop at our first Creative Therapies Conference at University of Salford in October and helping to make it such a memorable event.”
Leigh Gardner, Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy, University of Salford