As an actor, director and trainer, I have worked nationally and increasingly internationally for over 16 years with disadvantaged and disaffected groups using drama & theatre methods for workshops projects and learning programmes in project delivery, development and management, particulary in the areas of criminal justice, community arts, mental health, local authority, education and social services.

I develop projects and programmes that explore the impact of behaviour on adults & young people and people at risk, their families and others. This is achieved by, looking at the causes and consequences of the actions that have led them to act/offend.

The projects and programmes themselves vary from more recreational, usually drama-based activities leading to theatre or digital multi media productions, to projects and programmes that analyse and challenge behaviour and help them resist the forces of exclusion and institutionalisation as well build and develop key social/life skills.

Within these projects and programmes personal histories of a person can become the content of the session(s). Drama methodologies are used to explore the behaviour in question: what factors led to the offending behaviour/criminal action, could different decisions have been taken? Who suffers? What are the underlying drives?

I believe in the notion that individuals have the capacity to respond in different ways to pressures from friends, families or environment. Crime is not always an inevitable consequence of personal difficulties, nor can it be validated as a career option. Other strategies are always available. To access and understand these however requires the participant to use imagination to deconstruct and critique what is familiar, and to envision alternative behaviours. The creative and performing arts have a particular appropriateness in offering a language within which these arguments and speculations can take place.