SEEDS: Supporting and Enhancing Empowerment & Development through Storytelling

In this QNIS grant funded project, working in collaboration with Queen Margaret University, we helped community nurses to explore their experiences of work-related stress, promote well-being and resilience and co-create a tool kit that could support well-being in the workplace.

CAKE LogoDuring a series of 5 facilitated workshops we used creative and participatory methods, including storytelling, lego serious play, poetry. We have created a resource, CAKE: a recipe for self-care, well-being and team resilience-building. CAKE was tested in 17 sites across the UK and is now available as a digital resource.

Read more about the Catalysts for Change: SEEDs Project at The Queen’s Nursing Institute Scotland website >>

“At first felt really daunted by storytelling, but I could see the worth as the session went on and we elaborated on the stories, thank you”

Stories of Covid

We collected stories from students, staff and the local community from a nearby university. These stories recollected their experiences of lockdown during the Covid 19 pandemic. We then facilitated online workshops with a small group of the story contributors to analyse these stories and create a collective story in the form of a virtual art exhibition, to archive for the future.

A Qualitative Evaluation of the Queen’s Nurse

Development

Programme (QNDP)

The aim of this workshop was to show how poetry can be used to help tell stories and support learning. Working with a group of apprentice storytellers from a variety of backgrounds, we used poetry to explore personal journeys, and encouraged participants to write their poetry.


“The report that follows tells the story of this journey. It has been expertly crafted by Kath MacDonald and the transformational power of the programme comes through loud and clear”

Clare Cable: Director QNIS.

Postcards on a table some with ictures others with words. Pleased, compassionate, lonely, hopefulm guilty

Collective storytelling: Spoken word: Words from the wards. Edinburgh International Book Festival

Performing alongside Edinburgh Makar, Hannah Lavery, Kath drew on her fellow student nurses’ collective experiences of being a student nurse at the “Old” Royal Infirmary in the 1980’s. Using found poetry, Kath crafts a story from the quotes and experiences of others, bringing them together into one collective piece. She has used this technique in other settings; in social research and evaluation. Previous pieces include: the expression of peoples’ collective experience of the pandemic, description of a patient journey through chronic illness, and voicing experiences of a group undergoing a transformative leadership programme.

Performance: Scottish International storytelling festival Edinburgh

New Wave was one of this year’s best opportunities to experience the world of ‘baby’ storytellers. Four apprentices, Kath Macdonald, Ryan Martin, Neel Paul and Sarah Wedderburn-Ogilvy, hosted by mentor Janis Mackay, set feet to boards and plied their tales.

Postcards on a table some with ictures others with words. Pleased, compassionate, lonely, hopefulm guilty

“Kath MacDonald closed with something a little different, a tale plucked from a First Nation’s storybook. The discovery of the first ‘story stone’ made for fine entertainment, the gradual seduction of an entire village by this font of knowledge a delight. The start and conclusion were handled with patience and huge affection, but just a little more work to develop the mid-story would help achieve an even mightier conclusion. However, the little stone sitting beside my computer even as I write this, is a testament to a memorable performance”

WJQuinn, Editor of the Quinntessential Review