Eight years ago OETC toured a production and workshop to a drug and alcohol treatment centre. The play presented was about a mother whose children were being taken away from her due to her addiction. In the final moments of the production, a client who had been in and out of the criminal justice system her entire adult life stood up and said, “That’s me! That’s my life!!” This was the first time she had encountered theatre and afterwards she participated in OETC’s drama workshop.

Once she left treatment she started attending our weekly Drop-in Drama workshop, performed in our productions and eventually began to write plays. Eight years after her first encounter with OETC, she was sober, her son has been returned to her and she had become an acclaimed playwright with commissions from major theatre companies. She was an OETC Associate Theatre Facilitator and led our writers’ group. She said of her time as an OETC service user,