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Hi Pip/all --
Yes I’m sure we are all very busy : )
We have carried out a qualitative evaluation of Silence Speaks, in terms of the impact of participants, but you are correct — we have not had the resources to evaluate specific uses of stories.
For others’ knowledge I’m copying/pasting part of the overview of some of those uses. I’d love to work on evaluating the impact the stories have had on viewers. We are always making connections with academics who can help us with this piece, so I will keep everyone posted! I am hoping part of this can be achieved at least qualitatively, via the StoriesforChange portal we’re working on with our colleagues on the east cost (see information below)
Thanks and all the best to everyone,
Amy H.
--
Amy L. Hill
Community Projects Director
Center for Digital Storytelling
1803 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Berkeley, CA 94709
www.storycenter.org
510.548-2065 W
510-682-8311 C
"Listen Deeply. Tell Stories."
As far as use of stories, almost all of our community projects at the Center for Digital Storytelling have very explicit screening objectives. Education using stories from some of these efforts is indeed being done in many systematic ways.
Probably the best example is that of the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project, which is a youth development initiative we collaborate with. They recruit, hire, and train current and former foster youth to develop and deliver trainings to child welfare workers about the needs of youth in the foster care system. We do 2-3 workshops per year with them, and then they centralize the stories in the trainings they do. Because they are an intervention, and because funding is hard to come by, they have not done rigorous evaluation beyond short surveys with training attendees. However I do know that anecdotally they have found people always cite the digital stories as the piece of the trainings that made the biggest difference.
An offshoot of this is the workshop we did with parents whose kids were taken into the foster care system (and subsequently reunited with them). They are being shown nationally in a project which trains parents like this to serve as peer advocates to other parents who are working to get their kids back. The response has apparently been tremendous.
With silence speaks, the project focused on survivors and witnesses of violence, I partner with all kinds of groups. Some have clear agendas for how they will use the stories; some are more open and kind of wait to see what permissions they will get, from the storytellers. On the former, the best example is the workshops I did with MINCAVA, the Minnesota Centers Against Violence and Abuse. The Director, Jeff Edelson, is a very well-know speaker/trainer within the social services/criminal justice sectors, on domestic violence. We helped them create stories which he is using nationally, in his trainings for court personnel (ie, judges and the like) on how to address child custody issues when domestic violence is involved.
Another good example is the work I have done with generation five (see www.generationfive.org). We have done 4 workshops thus far -- one pilot; one with women focused on sexual abuse and class privilege; and two with men focused on male supremacy and men's role in addressing sexual violence. They use the stories in their trainings for community organizers on integrating attention to child sexual abuse into broader social justice initiatives, and screen them publicly at fundraisers/other events, to mobilize people to get involved in their work.
Then of course there is the work we did down in South Africa with the Men As Partners Network (see http://www.engenderhealth.org/ia/wwm/wwmds.html). They are using these stories in a variety of contexts to educate providers, raise awareness of the general public, and promote policy advocacy. They even showed them in South African parliament, only 2 weeks after they were produced.
Beyond these specific examples I get requests literally all the time for stories -- mostly from agencies doing gender violence work who want to obtain silence speaks stories to use as training tools. I have put together a beautiful compilation DVD of silence speaks pieces, for use as an outreach tool with potential partners/participants, and I'm going to put together a shorter version of stories I have full permission to use and make it available for purchase (fairly low cost just to cover duplication/postage etc. but maybe it'll help raise a bit of money for the project).
________________________________________________________________________
1. Re: Hello all, from California
Posted by: "Pip Hardy" pip@... pip_hardy
Date: Tue Nov 28, 2006 10:48 am ((PST))
Hi Amy
Thanks for joining. I'm afraid things have been a little slow,
partly due to my absence, but largely because people are all so busy.
Anyway, it's very good to know that there are others doing similar
work and to consider ways in which we might work together to share
experiences and deepen our work with story.
Am I right in thinking that you haven't carried out any formal
evaluation of the stories you've done? It would be interesting to
think of a schema that might could be used more widely to ascertain
the effectiveness of the digital stories, particularly with respect
to their use in different contexts.
I am also increasingly interested in different ways of using story
work to surface conflicts (real or perceived), articulate visions
and, of course, to offer a voice to the untold millions of patients
and carers who have never been heard.
Finding appropriate theoretical frameworks within which to do this
work is a challenge.
all good wishes
Pip
--- In patientvoices@yahoogroups.com, Amy Hill <amylenita@...> wrote:
>
> Hello everyone. My apologies for the belated introduction. I am the
> Community Projects Director with the Center for Digital
Storytelling in
> Berkeley, California. I met Pip at a retreat we held this summer
and was
> very inspired by her work. We do similar projects with
health/public health
> groups. Perhaps the best examples online are the sites where one
can view
> stories from our silence speaks project with survivors and
witnesses of
> violence:
>
> http://www.silencespeaks.org
> http://www.engenderhealth.org/ia/wwm/wwmds.html
>
> We are always looking for ways to grow those efforts, connect with
other
> facilitators, further the research on how stories can be shared
and how they
> affect viewers. So I look forward to the discussion!
>
> All the best for now,
>
> Amy Hill
>
> --
>
> Amy L. Hill
> Community Projects Director
> Center for Digital Storytelling
> 1803 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
> Berkeley, CA 94709
> www.storycenter.org
> 510.548-2065 W
> 510-682-8311 C
>
> "Listen Deeply. Tell Stories."
>
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