Consultancy

About

Theatre for Life consultancy provides a wide range of services to support organisations and the educational sector to embed the arts and creativity into their programmes and curriculum.

Supporting and designing creative programmes in health care environments, youth settings & education
Staff training and CPD
One to one mentoring
Helping you to demonstrate impact, test new ideas, learn and improve from experience

We want to help you deliver innovative programmes which enhance existing knowledge or skills and to foster artistic creation & innovation.

Lead Consultant

Michelle trained as a teacher 22 years ago at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society, which has been named Number one for Education in the QS World University. She has worked extensively in education both in the UK and internationally, specialising in creative health across the curriculum.

Michelle founded Theatre for Life in 2017, she wanted to create a community organisation which helped to equalise opportunities and empower individuals through the arts.

Through her role at Theatre for Life, Michelle has supported a wide range of organisations to embed creativity into their programming to promote positive health and wellbeing.

If you are interested in exploring our consultancy services, please complete the register your interest form

Consultancy Packages & Pricing

Find Out More

Consultancy Projects

Regeneration

Theatre for Life was a core partner with Southampton Children’s Hospital.

Regeneration Annual Report

Publications

Featured in the Arts Council England Creative Health and Wellbeing: Case Studies 2022.

View Case Studies

Michelle Smith (Artistic Director of Theatre for Life) worked jointly with Sarah Shameti (PEEER Youth Service Lead, Southampton Children’s Hospital)

The focus of Regeneration was in response to the significant impact of lockdown on the mental and physical health of children and young people living with a long-term health condition.

Michelle helped to embed arts and creativity into the programme, exploring multi-disciplinary approaches and combined arts projects. She designed an extensive offering of sociable, engaging and exciting opportunities to promote positive mental health and wellbeing.

Exploring different modes of delivery was a key feature with hybrid and blended approaches integrated into prescribing opportunities to support young people still shielding or who had been admitted to hospital, Covid and health inequalities.

"The PEEER Youth Service at Southampton Children’s Hospital support young people living with long-term health conditions and we have had the opportunity to work with Theatre for Life and Michelle on a number of occasions. The workshops and projects Michelle has delivered for us in the past have allowed young people to tap into their own creative tools and find ways to express themselves and relate with others. As a service we partnered with Theatre for Life to deliver our Regeneration social prescribing programme, which was jointly led by Michelle and myself. Michelle is a passionate and motivated professional, who strives to enable young people to explore creative mediums and develop confidence and as they are encouraged to be involved and be heard. The outcomes of Michelle’s work reflect the commitment, care and dedication to detail Michelle gives to each and every project. I hope to work closely with Theatre for Life again in the future."

Sarah Shameti, PEEER Youth Service Lead, Southampton Children’s Hospital

Emerge with Southampton Children’s Hospital

Emerge was a community led and collaborative project with the NHS and Southampton Children’s Hospital, working with young people with critical and long term health conditions to provide greater access to the arts and culture during the pandemic.

Publications

Featured in the Baring Foundation report - Creatively Minded & Heritage

View Report

Case study

How have culture and creativity been supporting people in health, care and other institutions during the Covid-19 pandemic?

View Case Study

Generation Anthropocene

Michelle collaborated with LifeLab, researchers, scientists and environmentalists across various locations such as Weston Shore, New Forest National Park Authority and in the City of Southampton to research and understand the comparative and environmental changes within our community.

The Generation Anthropocene project used science, art and culture as a platform to influence and lead public engagement on climate and the environment with young people from marginalised communities.

Michelle designed site specific and exploratory arts and conservation activities which combined creativity with climate science.

"It has been so powerful to see how we can use science and theatre to tell the stories of climate change, thinking about how the choices we make can affect not just the health of our planet, but also our health.

Working with Michelle as part of the climate change project has been a joy. She has been never-endingly enthusiastic and cheerful, being committed to delivering the sessions every week for the duration of the project. We have developed a really fantastic partnership which I hope will continue long after this particular project has finished."

Dr Kathryn Woods-Townsend
LifeLab Programme Manager
Associate Professor (Research)
Southampton Education School
NIHR Southampton Biomedical Research Centre

Roots and Branches

Roots and Branches project has connected young people (14-25 years) and older people with mild to moderate dementia through intergenerational and creative activities.

Michelle worked with dementia friendly artists and support workers to design weekly creative and wellbeing activities in art, theatre, movement, singing, yoga, storytelling, poetry and gardening.

The project promoted shared experiences, skills and knowledge with empowering and stimulating activities to support cognitive stimulation, isolation, health and wellbeing.

Through consultation Michelle was able to focus on the following outcomes:

Engage in weekly creative activities and open conversations which provide a chance to value the differences between people as well as discover the common ground.
Use shared storytelling and creative findings from the workshops to create an informative and engaging piece of theatre which helps to raise awareness around dementia and the power of intergenerational collaboration.

"Absolutely amazing, the stories were so poignant! It’s so important to get awareness out there and for people to realise that those living with dementia have such rich histories and we need to celebrate them for they have achieved and who they still are. The actors treated the subject so sensitively too!"

Jane Ward, Dementia Friendly Hampshire

Consultancy

About

Lead Consultant

If you are interested in exploring our consultancy services, please complete the register your interest form

Consultancy Packages & Pricing

Consultancy Projects

Regeneration

Publications

Emerge with Southampton Children’s Hospital

Publications

Case study

Generation Anthropocene

Roots and Branches

Contact Us