Matt was the founding Director of Streetwise Opera and is now Co-Director of Arts & Homelessness Int, a pioneering charity where 50% of the board and staff are/have been homeless. He has 20 years of experience working in the field and has co-produced programmes of work at successive Cultural Olympiads in London, Rio and Tokyo. With AHI, Matt works with local councils helping them to deepen policy co-creation through Legislative Theatre, a methodology which sees people with lived experience and council staff staging short plays which explore challenges and where the audience and other policy makers vote on new legislation.
As well general strategic and business planning, Matt can run sessions from 1.5 hours to a half- or full-day on ‘Authentic Co-Production’ – what it is and isn’t; how to facilitate inclusive, safe spaces through a process of preparation, delivery and follow-up; activating ideas using the model of ‘Freedom within a Framework’; moving from access to involvement to equity where the people in power step aside to allow others to share that space; governance co-production and co-production in leadership teams;. Matt can also work with a Legislative Theatre specialist to run a programme of 6 days of rehearsal over 3-4 weeks, followed by a performance and follow-up.
Matt is one of Gordon Brown’s Everyday Heroes; one of Evening Standard’s Most Influential Londoners and a Southbank Centre ‘Change Maker’. He was awarded an MBE for services to music and homelessness in 2011.