Dancing For Health: Innovating Wellbeing Through Barre

Dancing For Health is a Community Interest Company dedicated to harnessing the power of dance to help people with long term health conditions, people with disabilities and the elderly live happier, healthier lives. Through a diverse programme of inclusive dance activities, the organisation supports people of all ages and abilities to improve their physical health, mental wellbeing and social connections.  

Its core service is seated dance, providing classes for individuals with mobility challenges, alongside partner dance therapy programmes delivered in collaboration with healthcare providers and community groups. Sessions are delivered in hospitals, care homes, social care settings, community venues and online. They also provide specialist instructor training programmes, equipping others with the valuable skills and confidence to deliver dance sessions and develop meaningful, rewarding careers while making a lasting difference to the quality of life of those they support.

By continually developing new ways to engage and support communities, Dancing For Health is committed to ensuring that high-quality wellbeing activities remain accessible to those who can benefit most.  

The Challenge

As demand for specialised wellbeing programmes continues to grow, Dancing For Health identified an opportunity to expand its offer by introducing Barre classes to its portfolio of services. Barre combines elements of ballet, Pilates, yoga and functional strength training to create a low-impact, full-body workout that improves strength, flexibility, balance and core stability. 

The organisation recognised that Barre could provide significant benefits for a range of participants, particularly women experiencing challenges associated with menopause, domestic abuse recovery, mental health issues and other health-related concerns. However, developing a high-quality Barre programme required specialist expertise and training that was not readily available within the organisation. 

Dancing For Health needed access to academic knowledge and specialist support to equip its instructors with the skills required to design and deliver effective Barre programmes while ensuring long-term sustainability and growth. 

The Project

Through the South Yorkshire Innovation Programme (SYIP), Dancing For Health partnered with the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University and worked alongside Dr Jill Rose Jacobs to develop its Barre offering.  

The collaboration focused on training members of the Dancing For Health team in Barre instruction, enabling them to deliver professional, evidence-informed sessions to participants across South Yorkshire. As part of the project, three instructors successfully completed specialist Barre training. 

Beyond learning to deliver classes, instructors also gained skills in designing original Barre programmes and choreography. This included developing approaches informed by research into ageing brain health, helping ensure that participants could benefit from classes designed to support both physical and cognitive wellbeing. 

The project also created a substantial library of learning resources for the organisation, including books, manuals, bespoke video-recorded training materials, a filmed six-to-eight-week Barre programme and documented class notations. These resources provide a foundation for future delivery, staff development and programme expansion.

The Impact

The SYIP project has enabled Dancing For Health to introduce a completely new service offering, expanding the range of support available to communities across South Yorkshire. As a direct result of the collaboration, the organisation now has three qualified Barre instructors and has begun offering Barre classes as part of its programme of activities.  

Tracey Barnes, Director at Dancing for Health CIC, described the impact of the help they received: 

‘The South Yorkshire Innovation Programme has really helped Dancing for Health. It’s created us a complete Barre division, so we can target new audiences. It’s given us all the resources to do that and the confidence to our instructors that they can do this on their own.’ 

The new classes are helping the organisation reach additional audiences, particularly women seeking support through menopause, mental health challenges, domestic abuse recovery and other life circumstances that can benefit from safe, supportive physical activity.  

The project has also strengthened the organisation's internal capability. Through specialist training and access to educational resources, Dancing For Health has developed the expertise required to continue evolving its programmes independently while maintaining a high standard of delivery.  

Importantly, the partnership has opened the door to a range of future opportunities. The organisation is now exploring further funding opportunities with academic institutions and charitable organisations, investigating the development of additional programmes for underrepresented groups including ethnic minority communities and LGBTQ+ participants, and considering opportunities to host student placements.  

By combining community expertise with academic knowledge, the project has demonstrated how innovation can help voluntary and community organisations develop new services, reach more people and create lasting improvements in health and wellbeing across South Yorkshire. 

Reflecting on her SYIP experience, Tracey said: 

‘I would highly recommend anybody else to go for the South Yorkshire Innovation Programme. It’s given us an unbelievable opportunity to work with a researcher and an academic, something that we hadn’t planned, but now has given us opportunities to grow the business, and to provide different target audiences to what we were currently reaching.’ 

The South Yorkshire Innovation Programme is being delivered by Sheffield Hallam University in partnership with The University of Sheffield and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council and is part-funded by the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.  

To find out more about SYIP, please visit shu.ac.uk/syip