We have experience of delivering our circus workshops to many groups who work professionally with people with challenging needs and varied physical and mental abilities, people outside the mainstream of the community or with challenging behaviour, those who feel excluded by age or cultural barriers.
We don't presume to deliver on our own but in partnership with expert agencies and specialist teams.
We tailor-make each workshops to suit your requirements and we find that our circus-based activities are useful and successful in every case. We try our utmost to make sure that we are 'fully inclusive'.
We believe that we are particularly useful for:
First Contact - Getting to know each other
Breaking down social or cultural barriers
Learning new, suprising, skills: having Fun together
Bringing family members together in a non-challenging way.
We regularly work with young people and young adults with ADHD, who are on the autism spectrum or those who just don't get on with formal education.
We have worked with:
Sheffield MIND
SNIPS
Doncaster YOI
Serendipidy Arts and Dewsbury YOT
Charnwood Arts
We can also provide, with our partners, activities in Bungee Jumping, Segway Riding, Drama Workshops, Music Workshops, Diversity and Incusion Training for professionals.
Our Mission Statement: "To benefit communities and individuals through Circus". This means that the prices we offer to you in these fileds of work will be the best possible prices that we can offer.
Special Educational Needs
Here's an example of our work in the field of SEN.
Swamp Circus has an ongoing relationship with SNIPs, Sheffield. The Special Needs Inclusion Playcare Service works with clubs and organisations providing playcare, recreational and leisure activities for children and young people aged 5-18 years of age. (http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/caresupport/childfam/childrendis/snips) They provide mentoring support to help children and young people with additional needs and they also work with the siblings of those with a disability.
Over the last few years SNIPs have directly commissioned Swamp Circus to deliver a number of workshops for their direct service users, siblings and wider families. They have also signposted a number of young people to access our other workshops around Sheffield. They have done this because they recognise the value of what we do for the specific needs of their young people in both the content of our circus workshops and the way in which we deliver them.
“X had a really good session and tried everything. He didn’t always want to be doing the same activities as everyone else, but was always trying out some sort of circus skill on the side away from the main group. X has an upper arm deficiency, but really got stuck in and didn’t let it stop him from trying out everything” SNIP’s Coordinator
“Q was the one we were worried the most about engaging. She found it hard to stay with the group, but out of all the activities really got into the Diabolo and spent a long time playing with it to limited success, but seemed to enjoy it.” SNIP’s Coordinator
Young People Not In Employment, Education or Training
The human-beings being currently classified as NEETS are human beings, citizens and our brothers and sisters living in our community. And if teaching circus and theatre for the last 25 years has taught us anything, then its taught us that we all have abilities and skills and all share in laughter and fun together regardless of our classification, social status, formal educational banding or social background. We find that Circus activities are particularly effective in bringing out the skills that 'formal education' can't fully address. We develop self-confidence and self-esteem in the participants and you'll see young people having a laugh and achieving things for themselves that they didn't think possible. We also talk about the Pathways to Work in the performing and circus industries.
Workshops for the Older Generation
Circus isn't just for kids. We tailor our workshop activities for the older generation. We teach the circus skills but are aware and considerate of aging bones and flexibility issues. We provide opportunities for story-telling and reminisence and add more demonstration and short performances of the skills by our tutor-performers for entertaiment. We also have videos to show and balloon-modelling games to play together.
Dealing with Cultural and Language Barriers
Our Circus Workshops are ideal for having fun together. Circus is truely International as it doesn't rely on text or any particular language. The 'shared experience' of learning circus skills and playing together gives a common point of reference for the people involved. Laughter is universal and a great, easy learning and developmental tool. In this workshop we share the experience of learning new and strange things together. Its friendly fun and play and before anyone realises it new bonds of friendship, learning words in different langauges, exchange of cultural ideas have occured.
Please ask us for more details.
Circus in Schools
Please see our page Schools Workshops (Detailed) for the options we regularly deliver in Schools