Local Authorities need to take difficulties into account when speaking to people with disabilities
They didn’t want to take on board Maff’s advice about service users as they said they had a lot to discuss
Shackled, fragmented, mentally ill and a victim were some of the words Sophie used
There were some interesting stories
Maff wanted to inspire others to take action
Dayo researched racial justice and storytelling can’t be overestimated
Camarado, Mutuality and humanality are some other words used
Notes from roundup
There was a video from Tony McKenzie and he was explaining some steps on how to tell a story
Step 1: Is now the right time to tell a story, are you in the right place emotionally to tell it?
We want to be able to tell stories that aren’t traumatising
Step 2: Be prepared when telling story: bullet points, make it easy for you to read
Step 3: How are you going to be supported afterwards? Cup of tea and a slice of cake, walk. All these things need to be considered before telling a story
Be considerate of the persons family, how and where it’s going to be posted
Then they showed us the workshop representatives
David, Kath, Laura, Baljeet, Isaac, Hameed, Adele and Chris
Laura facilitated with Baljeet on the workshop called Our Lived Experience: Telling our stories where does the power lie
Hameed facilitated a workshop called: The lived experience of Mental Health during the Covid 19 pandemic – positive and negative mental health
Adele facilitated the story of the storyteller workshop
Chris facilitated the workshop safety in storytelling with 16 people who were brainstorming
Isaac facilitated the workshop called the impact of storytelling about closed culture
Kath was part of 2 workshops called: The future of good lived experiences and a call to action to campaign for lived experiences
David was part of co-production called chitchat:
Challenging, human, inclusiveness and being transparent
First to discuss feedback from their session was Adele, but I couldn’t understand her
Then there was a video about the workshop which was powerful as it was about black people and their stories, one in particular was about a 96 year old man who wanted his story to continue to be told. One of the other people said it was collaborative and hard to hold the tears back
Next to discuss their feedback was David
He was on the co-production collective about chat
His session was unstructured and let the people from his session just talk
Next to talk was Hameed
His workshop was about the lived experience of mental health during the covid pandemic, he had 6-7 people
They had to choose a part of their story during the lockdown and tell their story about it whether it be walking, keeping in touch with people on Zoom, how students, mothers, Young people, people who go to work had been affected. One of them said “I hope this is just the start†and hoped for some follow-up sessions
Everyone contributed which he was happy with, due to there being a small number of attendees
Chris was next to discuss and he’s been out in the real world, and his group reflected together
Safe spaces, barriers to overcome
Imaginative space to participate in arts and culture
They then played a couple of poems by a couple of people who attended his session, which were powerful poems
Next to discuss was Isaac
His session was about closed culture
Support, live and breathe poor care and they’ve experienced poor care, they’ve had rights removed
They wanted to make sure the next people who came along will have less chance of being involved in closed culture
If it’s difficult for people to speak, its trauma and their stories are traumatic
It’s about giving people a platform
Baljeet and Laura session was about Our Lived Experience: Telling our stories where does the power lie and how urgent it is to get stories across and how they do that.
Powerful
It alternated between the personal and the political all the time
Some of the people in the session have changed the system and liberated themselves and others
The whole group gave them feedback on a video
The film was about everyone on the group sharing some feedback, and it’s about giving way and sharing power
Kath was the last one to summarise her sessions:
What does good lived experience storytelling look like?
Call of action for a campaign
They split it into four rooms and they discussed:
What the campaign would look like? Ideas of stories around the campfire, short films from different people, different languages, accessibility
Specific campaign – what it would be about? Getting stories out there which have been harrowing, but also positive ones too
Truth to power – how we cans change the system, how we get to the people we need to listen to these stories e.g heads of councils
Spreading the values of lived experiences, shifting the power change
Then they ended with a final video of a short story from Sandra who talked about the importance of stories in times of change
