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Homeless Practice Incubator Project - Legislative Theatre

Homeless Practice Incubator Project - Legislative Theatre

Homeless Practice Incubator Project - Legislative Theatre

Monday, August 19, 2024

We are pleased to fund Homeless Link's new Homelessness Practice Incubator (HPI), a new way of working that provides the freedom to identify, explore and develop innovative practice across the UK and beyond. There isn’t one solution to ending homelessness and the sector is constantly evolving and responding to ever-changing needs and environments. 

Our support means that Homeless Link are able to discover, explore and platform more emergent practices during the next three years. The goal is to unearth the most promising, innovative practices from the UK and around the globe, and disseminate them within the homelessness sector. One of these practices is Legislative Theatre. 

What is Legislative Theatre?

The practice is a methodology for co-production and co-creation, with democracy sitting at its heart. Legislative Theatre​​ begins with a performance, created and delivered by actors with lived experiences of the issues identified. The types of issues are wide and varied and can be applied to anything where there is public policy, laws and practices that are not aligned or meeting the needs of the people they serve. This could be anything from issues faced by the learning disability community, benefits and poverty, domestic abuse and homelessness.

There are four stages of legislative theatre:

  • Watch an original play based on community members’ lived experiences and problems.
  • Act on stage to intervene in the play and test ways to address the problems presented.
  • Propose policy changes to address the problems, and deliberate together with policymakers.
  • Vote on the policy proposals that emerge from the plays, and make collective commitments to action.

How has legislative theatre been applied to the UK and homelessness sector?

Over the last five years or so, Legislative Theatre has grown in popularity, particularly in the homelessness sector. Several local authorities, including Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Coventry, Haringey, Medway and most recently, Wolverhampton have used it. The performances and subsequent work have focused on a range of issues faced by people experiencing homelessness, from outreach practices and verification processes to temporary accommodation and the creation of full strategies.

There are some impressive outcomes from performances across the country, including ​​​​​​​Greater Manchester's Prevention Strategy, wherein all 23 proposals from Legislative Theatre were included, such as involving people with lived experience at management level at the GMCA. This project won the 2022 award for Best Practice in Citizen Participation from the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy.

Find out more about the HPI's research into Legislative Theatre here.

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