Re-connect
A three-day drama based residency exploring the theme of resettlement. Using theatrical performance, experiential exercises, skills practice role-play and Geese’s trademark metaphor of the mask, the group is invited to explore issues connected with release and re-connecting with a life outside prison. Re-connect focuses on:
- motivation to change
- links between thoughts, feelings and behaviour
- goal setting
- identifying potential high-risk situations and strategies to deal with them
- developing potential relapse prevention plans
- identifying, rehearsing and practising skills for dealing with the first year of release.
The content of Re-connect is flexible and designed to be responsive to a particular group's needs. Issues which could be explored include:
- drug use and relapse
- returning to old friends / neighbourhoods
- re-integration with family
- relationships
- parenting and re-establishing connections with children
- dealing with reputations
- work and employment issues
- dealing with authority
- dealing with difficult feelings.
Over the past two years, thanks to generous funding from Lloyds TSB Foundation, Geese has delivered Re-connect twenty times in eleven different prisons. Those programmes were independently evaluated by Birmingham University's Forensic Psychology Team, and the following is a quote from their final evaluation report:
"Overall the Re-connect programme had a positive impact on the participants who attended it. The participants' level of self-efficacy and motivation to change improved signnificantly... This study provides support for not only the utility of the Re-connect programme in preparing participants for release, but also provides support for the continued use of theatre and drama in the criminal justice system."
Harkins et al, Evaluation of Geese Theatre's Re-connect programme, University of Birmingham
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