About JABADAO courses

Developing Practice – General Information

Who are courses and events for?
Courses and events are designed for people working across education, health, social care and community settings. They are all very practical – the best way to learn about movement is by moving – but none of our courses require previous experience of movement work.

Alongside practical work courses offer a mixture of discussion, time for questions, video, photos and sharing ideas with colleagues. Where applicable, courses make links with existing practice and targets in education, health and social care settings. Printed handouts are provided where appropriate, but don’t expect lots of written materials.

Refreshments and a light buffet lunch are always provided. Come dressed comfortably ready to move.

About JABADAO trainers and presenters
Developing Practice is not only about learning new skills and coming to new understanding, but a chance to ask difficult questions. For this reason our trainers have considerable experience prior to running courses for others and they continue to do practical work in the relevant setting themselves. They expect not only to deliver new ideas and ways of working, but to address the everyday difficulties and challenges raised by participants.

Code of Professional Conduct
All JABADAO trainers adhere to a specific Code of Professional conduct. All have Extended CRB checks and you are welcome to ask to see these before a practitioner works in your setting.

What do courses and events equip you to do?
All courses and events are designed to introduce ways of setting up new activities for the client group you usually work with (babies, children, young people, frail older people etc) within your regular work setting.

We aim to give you:
New understanding about the role of movement activities in learning, health and wellbeing, new ideas about how to develop more movement activities in the midst of what you already do in your setting new activities… and ways to generate your own new activities in conjunction with your users and support to advocate for a new approach amongst your colleagues.

What the courses do not equip you to do…
None of our courses equip you to train others even if you are used to training people in other kinds of work. This is a tricky one for us and we are constantly discussing how to strike the right balance. Our core purpose would be well served by as many people as possible passing on new ways of working with the body and movement. But we’re cautious on two counts, so our position at present is this.

We know that, without care, things can easily develop into Chinese Whispers, subsequent training bearing little relation to the original. (We were recently congratulated on our contribution to the world of carpet bowls via this route!) We have watched other approaches change out of all recognition as they grow and want to avoid this with the particular frameworks we have developed – Developmental Movement Play and Sociable Exercise.

The work is essentially about spontaneous movement play and needs to be taught by specialists… role models not only for a way of working, but also for a way of being.

So, whereas we fully respect the ability of many people to train, at present we do not offer Training the Trainers for anyone except our own practitioners.

We ask all those who train with us to respect these guidelines, to help us to make sure that the material develops in a thorough, sustainable way.

If you are interested in finding out more about applying to join the JABADAO team click here.

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