SME Partner

Anna Herrmann, Clean Break

Academic Partner

Selina Busby and Nicola Abraham, The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

Project Title

Celebrating Success

Project Description

Clean Break is an award-winning theatre company with a theatre education programme working with women with experience of the criminal justice system and women at risk of offending. Their aim is to create opportunity and inspire ambition through theatre – on stage, in prisons and at their studios in Kentish Town. The project was a longitudinal research project, gathering quantitative and qualitative data from 63 Clean Break alumni aiming to better understand, celebrate and share the diverse contributions and value that Clean Break’s alumni bring to the cultural landscape and to their communities. It culminated in a written report, Celebrating Success, which tells the women’s stories and providing some evidence of their cultural value and also in an accompanying photographic and audio exhibition, The Changing Face of the Arts, which celebrates and promotes the women’s contributions to their communities and the cultural landscape, which have resulted from their engagement with Clean Break and the arts.

“Clean Break has changed my life; you know there’s no two ways about that. It has given my life direction, purpose, and reason and theatre is my life.” – Alumni

Clean Break’s alumni are making contributions to the cultural landscape: 95% said that Clean Break had helped them develop a new or existing interest in the theatre and/or the arts; 85% of respondents agreed that their current involvement in arts and theatre provision has been influenced by Clean Break; 96% of the women surveyed stated that they had intentions to engage with the arts in the future if they had not already done so.

The increasing number of women accessing arts through their experiences with Clean Break demonstrates that this organisation is clearly contributing to the cultural landscape of the UK.The project research shows that the women surveyed have gained many core skills during their time with Clean Break, and that these transferable skills have been vital in their career progression and therefore in their contributions to the cultural landscape.