Talbot Village Trust & WillDoes support youth wellbeing dance programme

A huge thank you to local charity Talbot Village Trust and Dorset charity, WillDoes for supporting Shift, our youth wellbeing programme in schools.  Shift uses the power of dance to support young people aged 11 to 14 yrs to build self-esteem and a sense of belonging, whilst nurturing their wellbeing.

Thanks to the generous support of Talbot Village Trust and Dorset youth charity WillDoes we are able to support five 8-week Shift programmes for secondary school pupils, supporting their mental health and wellbeing.

We are delighted to announce a new term of Shift dance, starting at Bourne Academy, Bournemouth this Autumn. We have previously run the programme at Cornerstone Academy, Poole and are thrilled we can bring it to another school in BCP.

We welcome along Natalie Cresswell, our new wellbeing practitioner who will work alongside Emily Thompson-Smith, our dance artist to host these weekly after school programmes.

Natalie is a skilled and experienced youth worker and yoga instructor, dedicated to making yoga accessible to everyone in the community. She combines her passion and expertise in both youth work and yoga, creating opportunities for young people to grow, develop self-awareness and learn skills to navigate through adolescence and into adulthood. 

Emily is a highly experienced lead dance artist with experience of supporting this programme previously at Cornerstone Academy in Poole.   Together they are looking forward to taking this into another school to help support the wellbeing of more secondary school students.

During one term at Cornerstone Academy, 87.5% of attendees felt an improvement in their wellbeing during the course of the workshop with 75% of participants reporting they deal with problems well more often (SWEMWBS, 8 out of 10 participants).