1998

Leaping forward to 1998 we now had our own office in Croydon! 14 years after we started, Roundabout was running 23 weekly projects, a 65% increase on the figure for 1997. We were working in 14 London Boroughs and our client groups now included people with mental health issues, older adults, people with drug and alcohol problems, siblings who are carers, and adults and children with autism. Roundabout held a photographic exhibition with photographs of client work taken by Croydon college students and In 1998 we received our second grant from what was then the Bridge House Estates Trust and is now the City Bridge Trust, cementing a long and productive relationship.

1986

Roundabout became a registered charity and received their first major funding from The London Borough Grants Unit. as a result of one of their grants officers visiting one of our sessions with adults with a learning disability and taking her shoes off and joining in the session. Fortunately, a client who enjoyed hiding shoes down his trousers decided to leave her shoes alone. Roundabout started at Queen Mary’s, later known as Orchard Hill, and a year into to work Roundabout took on its first additional dramatherapist Jeni Treves. 

1984

Deb and Lynn met on the Sesame training at Kingsway Princeton, with a feeling that they had met before. On the last day of the training they decided to work together, so when a Persian princess met a drama queen, east meeting Essex, Roundabout was born.
After a year of cold calling, and interviews with client groups and drama inspectors, they had a full week of dramatherapy sessions to run, working with various client groups. These included adults and children with a learning disability and people with complex needs, as well as a mainstream primary school, a group of young offenders in an alternative to prison, a school for hearing impaired children and some memorable play schemes, one in Eastbourne! 

watch this space, more to follow soon……….