SENsory Atelier methodological exchange

During their April 2024 visit to the UK, ACPDI leaders and academics attended the University of Leicester’s Attenborough Arts Centre to learn about its nationally award-winning SENsory Atelier programme from project lead, Marianne Scahill-Pape.

The programme has developed Reggio Emilio techniques in exploratory, child-led sensory arts practice with nine special schools in Leicestershire. Its process-over-product philosophy resonated with Marybexy Calcerrada (University of Holguín), who was already working, along with other psychologists from her department, with mothers from ACPDI, running process-centred arts workshops for therapy, respite and expression. For the ACPDI leaders, interest came from the programme’s use of sustainable and scrap materials, as well as from an affirming approach to non-verbal and creative ways of exploring the world, which were already starting to inform work with Mileidis Mengana Cobas on sensory panels for special schools.

Thanks to an International Science Partnerships Fund grant from De Montfort University, we were able to share the SENsory Atelier methodologies in eastern Cuba, leading to a blossoming of locally designed programmes and approaches. In January 2025, Rosi Smith delivered workshops sharing the approach, as set out in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Code of Practice for Arts Organisations, Artists and Educators, with researchers, ACPDI leaders-mothers, teachers, psychologists and arts instructors from Holguín and Granma, along with Yohania Mateu Reina (ACPDI national vice-president).

We worked through activities exemplifying key SENsory Atelier principles, such as curiosity, visual listening, and facilitators learning and creating alongside children and young people. Attendees then adapted the activities, trialling approaches with groups of teenagers and young adults from ACPDI and with the local Jorge Ricardo Masseti Blanco special school.

From this chance to share practice and work together, we have developed work on sensory suitcases for community practice, as well as establishing new projects in Granma, Holguín and at De Montfort University in Leicester. We’re also doing research together, reflecting on how each of us has developed our thinking and practice.