SS Dance & Wellbeing

The What...

SS Dance and Wellbeing is a growing social organisation with a key focus on using dance to tackle the growing concerns about our everyday mental health and to promote the important benefits dance can have on our physical and mental wellbeing. As Chief Wellbeing Officer, Sophie Simpson has a wealth of experience within dance delivery having gained a BA Honours degree in Dance Studies, with a specialism in Community Dance and Choreography.

She has worked in wide range of schools across North, East & West Yorkshire, Lancashire and Liverpool delivering a range of styles such as Jazz Technique, Street Dance, Musical Theatre and International Dance. From the young age of 14 she became a member of her non-profit community dance troupes management committee and has been involved with the general running of the troupe for over 20 years and continues to work with young people in the community/voluntary sector with organisations in and around Kirklees.

The Why...

Sophie found that from a young age she struggled to deal with processing lots of information. Her mind would switch off and she would easily loose concentration when becoming slightly stressed or felt levels of anxiety. Being involved in creative tasks was the only thing that she excelled at and it was the only thing that kept her occupied for long periods of time.

Dance became the key, she began to notice changes in her mood and mindset when participating in creative physical activity. After dance classes or teaching she would feel more productive and have an all-round positive attitude. Over the years dance has grown into a passion and has become something that now fuels everything Sophie is associated with.

Creating a career in dance was always the vision - since leaving university in 2007 Sophie has been on a journey, having held a dance and delivery development role at Sheffield City Council and Yorkshire Team Officer role at Nouveau Wellbeing (North East) Sophie found a passion within wellbeing and decided to follow her dream of creating and running a social enterprise. In April 2017 SS Dance & Wellbeing was created... A self-made business built around her passion; dance and it's potential to create health and happiness in a wide range of people.

The purpose of SS Dance & Wellbeing is to give people that simple but effective sense of escape through participation in dance classes as well as give knowledge about health benefits, boost endorphins and empower people to improve their own physical and mental wellbeing.

In October 2017 Sophie was invited to join the Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Programme in partnership with The School for Social Entrepreneurs and the Big Lottery Fund, giving her the opportunity to build a social enterprise to continue to develop the work that she had started in April 2017.