Making Safeguarding Visible in the Studio: 3 Activities Every Dance Teacher Should Try

Looking to embed safeguarding meaningfully in your dance practice? These 3 creative tools will help you make safety visible, participatory, and dancer-led.

What is Strengths-Based Safeguarding in Dance?

In dance, safeguarding isn’t just a policy. It’s something that should be felt, practiced, and embodied. As an art form rooted in the body, dance offers a unique opportunity to explore safety, well-being, and human rights through active, experiential learning.

This post builds on our popular Tree of Life blog by introducing additional creative, strengths-based activities that dance organisations can embed into their curriculum or training environments. These activities are not about asking dancers to be more resilient in the face of harm. They are about creating space for dancers to explore what safety means to them, and for organisations to listen, reflect, and respond.

Here at The SPRINT project, we believe that integrating these practices into everyday studio life, dance schools and companies can take meaningful steps toward a whole-organisation approach to safeguarding; that is, one that promotes not only protection from maltreatment, but also the well-being, dignity, and rights of every dancer (Cumming et al.,

2024).

If you are new to strengths-based approaches to safeguarding, check out our post: https://www.sprintproject.org/post/leveraging-strengths-a-transformative-approach-to-safeguarding-in-sport-and-dance

Exploring what it means to feel safe as a dancer.

Why Creative Activities Support Safer Dance Spaces

Creative, strengths-based activities offer a powerful way to:

1. Foster psychological safety and trust

2. Encourage open dialogue and reflection

3. Make safeguarding visible and tangible in the studio

4. Align with trauma-informed principles by offering choice, voice, and agency

These activities can be used in workshops, classes, or staff training to help embed safeguarding into the culture and curriculum of dance organisations.

Activity 1: Resilience Timelines

What it is:

Participants create a visual timeline of their dance journey, highlighting moments of challenge and how they navigated them.

Organisational benefit:

This activity helps educators and safeguarding leads understand the lived experiences of dancers and identify common support needs.

How to use it:

• Provide materials or digital tools for timeline creation.

• Invite reflection on key events, turning points, and sources of support.

• Use insights to inform pastoral care and safeguarding strategies.

Activity 2: Safe Space Mapping

What it is:

Participants draw or describe spaces, physical or emotional, where they feel safe, respected, and able to express themselves.

Organisational benefit:

This activity surfaces what dancers need to feel safe and can guide improvements to studio culture, communication, and safeguarding policy.

How to use it:

• Ask dancers to map their current environment.

• Facilitate discussion on what contributes to or detracts from safety.

• Use findings to co-create safer, more inclusive spaces.

Activity 3: Strengths Shields

What it is:

Participants design a “shield” that represents their personal strengths, values, and support systems.

Organisational benefit:

This activity promotes self-awareness and confidence, while also helping staff understand the diverse strengths dancers bring to the studio.

How to use it:

• Use a shield template divided into sections (e.g. “What I’m good at,” “What helps me,” “What I value”).

• Encourage optional sharing in pairs or groups.

• Reflect on how these strengths can be supported and celebrated.

How to Embed These Activities in Your Dance Practice

These activities are not standalone, but can be woven into:

• Safeguarding and well-being workshops

• Staff curriculum planning and reflective practice

• Staff development and mentoring programmes

They support a strengths-based approach to safeguarding. Risks are not ignored, but balances it with a focus on what’s working, what’s possible, and what dancers need to thrive.

Infographic on creative activities for promoting wellbeing and safer dance

Want to Learn More?

We’re continuing to explore how creative, participatory methods can support safer dance. Subscribe to www.sprintproject.org to stay updated on our research, resources, and opportunities to get involved.

Let’s keep building a dance culture where all dancers have a right to feel safe, supported, and seen.

Share Your Experience

Have you tried using creative or strengths-based activities like these in your dance organisation? We’d love to hear how they’ve worked for you, whether in workshops, training, or the studio.

👉 Want to help shape a safer dance culture? Share this post with fellow dance educators and tag us @sprintproject! Let’s grow this community of care.

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Written by Prof Jennifer Cumming, Co-Director of The SPRINT Project and Chartered Psychologist.  

To reference the infographic: Cumming, J. (2025, 25 July). Creating activities for safer dance: To promote dancer wellbeing and safer enviornments [Infographic]. The SPRINT Project. https://www.sprintproject.org/post/making-safeguarding-visible-in-the-studio-3-activities-every-dance-teacher-should-try

References: Cumming, J., Nordin-Bates, S. M., Johnson, C., Sanchez, E. N., & Karageanes, S. J. (2024). High time to enhance dancer welfare: a call to action to improve safeguarding and abuse prevention in dance. BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 10(2), e001811. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjsem-2023-001811