Bristol Theatre News

Darcey Bussell Drops into Bristol McDonald’s for Move-Assure Launch

World class ballerina and star of Strictly Come Dancing – Darcey Bussell – dropped into McDonald’s in Fishponds last week, to launch Move-Assure for its employees.

Bussell came to the Fishponds restaurant to introduce the mental wellbeing programme, which is based on dance and movement.

The Move-Assure method brings together evidence-based science with dance to create positive and solutions based outcomes.

Laura Wilder is the first restaurant franchisee to introduce the programme, paying for the £49 per year membership for each of her 110 employees.

Mental wellbeing is ‘so important’ Wilder says. She wants to use the programme to make sure her staff feel ‘most supported.’

Dame Darcey Bussell DBE is one of the co-founders of Move-Assure. She added: “I really applaud Laura’s decision to use movement to support her employees wellbeing. Movement to music is scientifically proven to offer so many health benefits, both physical and mental, to everybody. We had a great time introducing the programme to the team at McDonald’s Fishponds”.

The programme includes dance-based sessions led by Darcey, as well as mental wellbeing tips, toolkits and a closed group coaching programme just for McDonald’s staff.

There’s a variety of 17 different dance styles from around the world to follow. Of these 17 styles, there’s a total of 60 dance movement sessions lasting 15-20 minutes.

The sessions have been especially created to benefit positive mental health as well as ones to aid calmness, improve memory and concentration or to just dance for fun.

Joining Darcey for the Fishponds launch was Move-Assure co-founders – occupational therapist Lindsey Lovatt and Dr Peter Lovatt, author of The Dance Cure.

To get the programme off to a swinging start, Councillor Lorraine Francis dropped in to take part in the Fishponds movement session. She was joined by Mark Goodway, the Founder and CEO of the Matthew Tree Project and Bev Course, manager of the Fishponds Baptist Church Soup Run team.

The benefits of dance upon wellbeing and performance in the workplace, is something currently being studied academically by Professor Michela Vecchi at Kingston University. Employees taking part in the programme will be invited to take part in the exciting study.

Dr Peter Lovatt said: “It’s great that McDonald’s are supporting the wellbeing of its workforce with the Move-Assure Dance for Mental Wellbeing Programme which uses research evidence, fantastic dances and clinical application – because when you move you improve”.

You can find out more about Move-Assure here: https://move-assure.com/

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