The Power of Storytelling

By Amy Tobolski

 

This past May I had a really wonderful experience that I’d like to share with everyone.  Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to participate in a couple of Biographical Timelines, so I was somewhat familiar with how informative and truly powerful the process can be.  Then last fall I was able to receive training to actually facilitate Timelines.  As a part of that process, I was invited to mentor as a co-facilitator with Doug Pickens of the Office of Developmental Programs for an individual in Ridgway. 

 

Now, for those of you who have never been involved in a Biographical Timeline, they are indeed very powerful, but they are also time-consuming.  Essentially, you are writing someone’s story from birth to the present, including living arrangements, clinical issues, medications, hospitalizations, and stopping now and then to consider how this person’s experiences were different from their peers and how they might have been affected / what they might have felt.  As the story unfolds, participants invariably begin to see how the person’s current struggles relate to past experiences, and they begin to see the person in a new and different light.  The powerful part.

 

We explained all this to the team at our initial meeting.  Everyone expressed an eagerness to participate.  Then we described the time-consuming part – that we would be probably be looking at a minimum of 12 hours, to be done in two day sessions or more, as the team saw fit.  Still, everyone was ready to go.  Then, the family stated that the only time their work schedules would accommodate was after 5:00pm.  Everyone at the table was now being asked to give up at least four evenings in 3-hour chunks of time and not one person showed the slightest hesitation!  A really good sign of things to come.

 

The evening of the first meeting arrived.  With summer on the horizon and Little League in full swing, I was prepared for some no-shows.  As the room filled, it soon became clear we had everybody we expected and more!  “Well, it’s the first night and everybody’s curious to see what this is all about.  Tomorrow night we’ll surely lose at least a couple,” I told myself.  Wrong!  “Well, by next week, they won’t do two more evenings, especially since several of these folks aren’t getting paid to be here.”  Wrong, again!  Attendance included the individual, her family, direct support professionals, nursing staff, administrators, a program specialist, and county personnel.  One evening, we even had a staff person from a previous placement that the individual left almost 10 years ago!

 

And everyone was there is spirit as well as body -- they participated, they were involved, they asked questions and offered information.  And they learned.  They learned about the individual, her family, her life, what worked, what didn’t – they heard her complete story, all in one place at one time, not as simply some notes in an old file or a paragraph in a support plan.  And at the end of it all, although I’m sure they were tired, the team also seemed invigorated, full of ideas about answers to seek and approaches to try to support the woman many of them had known for years and yet, in some ways, just met for the first time.

 

I would like to thank the following agencies for their participation and commitment:  Adult Habilitation Center; Dickenson Mental Health Center; Cameron / Elk MH/MR; and Ramsbottom Center, Inc.

Go confidently in the directions of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined.

                                                                                Henry David Thoreau