Speakers
Patricia Downey
Parallel Workshops
This showcase presentation takes delegates on a powerful journey of using theatre and drama as a rehabilitative tool within the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Delivered by Patricia Downey, Artistic Director and co-founder of Spanner in the Works Theatre Company (SITW), and co-presented by Gerard, a former participant turned professional Peer Support Worker with Belfast Health and Social Care Trust, this session offers both a practitioner’s expertise and a lived experience perspective that together make an undeniable case for the transformative power of the arts in criminal justice.
Founded in Belfast in 1998, SITW has worked with offenders, ex-offenders, women, young people, and people with disabilities, using drama to explore and address pressing social issues including addiction, mental health, domestic violence, human trafficking, and reintegration. With long-standing partnerships with the NI Prison Service and the Department of Justice, SITW has built a model of engagement that reaches people other interventions cannot.
Patricia Downey is the Founder, Artistic Director, and writer of Spanner in the Works Theatre Company (SITW), a Belfast-based theatre company she established in 1998. With over 28 years of experience as a writer, director, drama facilitator, and filmmaker, Patricia has built a distinctive body of work that uses theatre and drama to explore challenging social issues – including work with offenders and ex-offenders, mental health, domestic violence, substance abuse, and human trafficking – with honesty, empathy, and impact.
Patricia has a long and established relationship with the Northern Ireland Prison Service, having delivered drama workshops and productions within prisons across Northern Ireland. Her work with offenders and ex-offenders centres on using the transformative power of theatre to support rehabilitation, build communication and emotional skills, reduce isolation, and help participants envision positive futures. She is passionate about reaching those most often overlooked by mainstream arts provision and brings specialist expertise in facilitation with marginalised groups, underpinned by qualifications in Mental Health and Wellbeing Coaching, Conflict Management, Child Protection, and Disability Equality. Her productions have been staged at the Lyric Theatre Belfast, toured nationally, and performed at the Edinburgh Fringe and Buxton Fringe Festivals, where SITW won Best Production twice. As a filmmaker, her short films have been recognised at international festivals. She has been awarded writing residencies at Hedgebrook in Seattle and a writers’ retreat in Croatia, and in 2015 received a Highly Commended Community Impact Award from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.
Gerard is a lived experience advocate, peer mentor, and co-presenter with Spanner in the Works Theatre Company. His journey from addiction and imprisonment to becoming a professional Peer Support Worker with Belfast Health and Social Care Trust is a testament to the transformative power of recovery, community, and creative intervention.
Gerard’s experience of addiction began in 2006, when alcohol and drug use masked undiagnosed and deteriorating mental health. Over nearly two decades he cycled through addiction services, mental health admissions, and the criminal justice system – a period he describes as one of profound shame, guilt, and loss of hope. It was during his time at Maghaberry Prison that he first joined Patricia Downey’s drama workshops with Spanner in the Works Theatre Company, an experience he credits as pivotal: “Drama gave me hope. It gave me the chance to feel human.”
Following his release, Gerard volunteered with the Public Health Agency’s AskHim Peer Mentoring Programme, supporting individuals in custody during their first 48 hours – one of the original mentors on a programme that demonstrated measurable improvements in quality of life and a reduction in incidents. He has worked alongside Spanner in the Works on The Butterfly Effect, sharing his personal story with audiences to promote empathy and reduce stigma around addiction and imprisonment. He now holds a position as a Peer Support Worker in addiction services – bringing his lived experience full circle in service of others.