RAP (Respect and Protect) was originally funded as a pilot by the Department of Health.  It was seen as an extension of the peer facilitation work already so successfully established in Apause, with the intention of addressing the needs of vulnerable and hard-to-reach young people.

The pilot demonstrated that a mix of peer facilitation and an approach based in theatre making could be powerfully transformative.  Due to the challenges of keeping Apause available through an era of funding cuts and restructuring of commissioning, RAP was negelected. But we always believed it had the potential to be a positive force of change in the lives of young people.

So now, thanks to generous funding from the Rayne Foundation and Exeter's Northbrooke Community Trust, the show is back on the road.  Except there's no final performance.  The clients are groups of young people the majority of whom are either in care or looked after and the performance that really counts is how they take the experiences from RAP workshops into the theatre of their daily lives.

How does it work? RAP revolves around the central principle that all successful relationships, at some point, require skillful negotiation.  So the clients are given a wide range of theatrical experiences which are all forms of successful and enjoyable negotiation.  These include playing games, trust exercises, improvisations, script work, mask work, mime, and dance.  The volunteer peer facilitators (sixth formers, undergraduates, and under 25s) have the primary function of making relationships with the clients through the medium of theatre.  Gradually, the theatre work brings about changes in the peers, the clients and their carers as they discover that they can anticipate, prepare themselves for, and perform negotiations.  They develop a range of strategies which help them manage their relationships more effectively.

We don't think the participants learn behaviours as though they are replicable pieces of action, rather they discover that they can enjoy playing effectively within the structure of a fictional negotiation.  This is a creative process with recognisable patterns which become available to them in their daily interactions.

Our first group of clients are from North Devon and are in the care of the Phoenix organisation.  After the first cycle of ten session in a village hall, everyone enjoyed it so much that we are continuing to run a further eight workshops.  This term we have been working with Mount Tamar School in Plymouth and hope to continue into the Autumn.  In September the RAP peers start their work in Somerset with clients looked after by the Embrace group.

We still have funding for another cycle of ten visits, so if you know of a suitable group of clients or an organisation that might want to collaborate with us, please don't hesitate to contact me, David Evans (07812561123) email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.