“The Shakespeare sessions”: An evaluation of a pilot intervention with youth at risk of violence.

Theatre and the use of Shakespeare’s plays with young people to teach compassion, respect and tolerance has been used with schools, with young people at risk of violence or those referred by youth offending teams (Wade, 2016). These approaches have provided a caring environment for the participants (Kitchen, 2021; Wade, 2016). Following the pandemic, online interactions have become parts of our lives, and online theatrical interventions had not been used with young people at risk. The aim of the study is to explore participants’ experience of using Shakespeare in online sessions with professional actors to empower young people with the skills to avoid violence, irrespective of social and economic barriers, through the rehearsal, discussion, and performance of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The sample consisted of four young people, and five staff members who were all involved in the intervention. The age range of the group was 13 to 65 years old, four males and five females. A focus group with the young participants as well as individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with staff members to explore their experience of the intervention. A thematic analysis was conducted during which three themes were generated: 1. Challenges and barriers to the intervention (this related to participants’ perception of the challenges that had to be overcome to complete the intervention such as online and technical challenges, working with young people at risk and group dynamic); 2. Impacts and effects of intervention (this related to participants’ perceptions of the progress and potential effects of the intervention such as “Building skills and self-development” and providing “Safe place/outlet”); 3. Why Shakespeare? (this related to participants’ perceptions about the use of Shakespeare’s work and assumptions about the type of participants the intervention may be suited to). Recommendations were also made by participants about this pilot.