Stories can take many forms and serve many different purposes. All of us will be familiar with fairy tales or legends and myths from childhood, or perhaps poems or parables that contain an underlying message. In later life we may be more familiar with anecdotes from personal or others’ experiences, or with films and theatre that are all based on a story.
People take different messages away from the same stories depending on how they view the world. Stories can be a powerful learning tool and can involve all the senses. We refer to the seven E’s of storytelling to consider the purpose of stories.
Applied storytelling
Our work is underpinned by this definition from the Village Storytelling Centre Glasgow, Scotland and the Aurus project: https://www.aurusproject.eu/
“Applied Storytelling is the purposeful application of story as a tool for personal, community or organisational development, learning or information-gathering and sharing. The ultimate goal is often to support and platform participants’ expression in ways which feel safe, authentic and appropriate for them. These processes have the potential to be of benefit to participants’ well-being and self-esteem, as well as to support people with lived experience to inform organisational and/or strategic change.”
We also use Digital storytelling to support people to share stories and for impact evaluation.
Resources:
- Holloway I and Freshwater D 2007. Vulnerable story-telling: narrative research in Nursing. Journal of Research in Nursing 12,6 (703-11)
- TRACS: Available: https://tracscotland.org/
- Wacker M and Silverman L 2003. Stories Trainers Tell. Pfeiffer: San Francisco
- Aurus Project: Available: https://www.aurusproject.eu/