Workshop Formats
We specialize in tailor made roleplay events to best suit your workplace needs. However, we can provide some basic building blocks of how workshops are typically constructed to help guide you in your roleplay design. All of the formats are adaptable for large and small groups.
Presentation
Our actors roleplay a scene (or scenes) that focus on your training objective (i.e delivering difficult news, leading through organizational change, diversity in the workplace, etc). Your trainees are observers to the roleplay. A presentation is typically followed with a question and answer mediated by the trainer, or small group discussions and exercises. Groups can share their ideas with the actors who can immediately replay the scenario implementing those ideas. More discussion and learning is generated as participants have now witnessed their ideas in practice.
Simulation
Our actors roleplay a scene with your trainees. Your learners literally practice their skills in the moment in a situation that comes as close as it can to the real world. This can be followed with self-assessed feedback, observer feedback, and group discussion/exercises. Participants in the simulation are encouraged to use their self-assessment and the ideas of their peers to replay the scenario and apply learning.
Simulation with Actor Feedback
This format follows the simulation structure with one incredible bonus – immediate and specific feedback from our actors. Your learners hear from our actors how they felt as that character in the interaction. Even in the real world, professionals rarely get the chance to hear the client’s perception of their communication. Drop us a line and we will send you some specific true life stories about the powerful nature of this feedback and other Stories From the Field.
Targeted Training
For Managers and TrainersLet’s face it. Your workplace is full of people. You know– those difficult organisms that have different opinions and needs and skills and *gulp* personalities! Retention, mental health, conflict, harassment, performance, dismissal, diversity– these all have to be addressed. If not, a vicious cycle ensues:
!! employees go on leave.
!! tensions and workloads increase.
!! those employees go on leave.
This unhealthy merry go round is a ride that loses time, money, and morale. Left to spin on its axis it can cost consultation, investigation, and mediation fees.
Although each workplace is unique, there are universal difficulties that all workplaces share. We are not robots at work- we are people who at the core are emotionally wired. We have created a bank of scenarios that address these issues, and use our talented actors to realistically portray these situations. In an encounter that comes closest to what it will be in the real world, your employees have the chance to practice:
> Mental Health: Mindful Measures
> What is Sexual Harassment?
> Engaging Employee Excellence
> Interprofessional Conflict
> Employee Dismissal
> Bullying in the Workplace
> When you are the Messenger: Delivering Difficult News
> Embracing Diversity
> Coaching Accountability
> Leading Through Changing Environments > Managing Objections
These scenarios can be easily adapted to reflect the learning outcome you would like built into the role-play.
For First Responders
You are on the front lines. You face crisis, violence, danger, and raw emotion every day. We can’t change the sharpness of the circumstances, but we can file the edges a bit with practice. In your line of work you don’t have time to mince words. You need to act. So we won’t mince our words either. We’ll tell you how we act.
As simulators we have:
> Survived sexual abuse
> Confined a hostage
> Delivered a baby
> Sexually Harassed a co-worker
> Endured PTSD
> Found our child dead
> Turned Tricks
> Abused a child
> Planted racist materials
> Attempted suicide
> Coped with illiteracy
> Been paralyzed in a car accident
> Suffered survivor’s guilt
> Been given a month to live
> Had sex at work
> Lost everything to gambling
> Hidden a drug addiction
> Smothered our baby
If we can tackle that– what can’t we roleplay for you?
For Diversity Education
“Finally, I get it.”
“I wish I had learned this years ago.”
“I never saw the need for this before, and now I understand.”
“Why doesn’t every workplace teach this?”
This is what we hear from our participants.
How do we do it?
As diversity educators we are trustworthy, open, and immediately responsive to the group. Exploring difference can be messy and emotionally charged. We let our participants “go there” in a secure framework and dig to the bottom of issues, not in a quest to criticize, but to offer an honest transformative learning process.
The foundation of our work is on three levels; awareness, knowledge, and skills.
Awareness of personal bias.
Knowledge of the benefits of a respectful and diverse workplace.
Skills to deal with inter professional diversity issues.
Let us help your organization reach it’s true potential by creating an optimal work environment, where all employees feel valued and included. The measurement of our success is improved communication, a decrease in sick time, more employee motivation, and increased productivity.
We look forward to helping you achieve this goal, as we strive to promote a thriving and inclusive work place.
Script Writing Services
Karen Bassett, our writer, is a twice award nominated playwright, whose work has been produced across Canada. In addition, she has written script for numerous events and organizations including:
> The Nova Scotia Merritt Awards
> Dalhousie School of Medicine
> Scotiabank
> Caregivers Association of Nova Scotia
> Family SOS
> Association of Fundraising Professionals Nova Scotia
> The Irondale Ensemble Project
> Suddenly Listen Music Society
> Off the Leash Creative
Karen quickly and creatively customizes scenarios with your training outcomes, timelines, and participants in mind.
Writing for your simulation can begin from several sources:
> You can provide us with existing training scenarios that we will modernize, flesh out, or create fully scripted scenes.
> Resourcing the training information and outcomes you want to achieve through simulations, we can create scenarios and/or scripted scenes.
> We can provide you with some sample scripts and scenarios from typical simulation situations and tailor them to your workplace.
We are always ready to meet with you and get the core of the skill set you want to master in your simulated event. We are here to serve your needs.
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