Storytelling and social care

Katy Shorten, Research and Development Manager at Research in Practice talks to Georgie Steele about the power of storytelling. Georgie shares her experience of being a parent carer and how storytelling has helped her to gain perspective on her situation, including what has happened and how she copes in her caring role. She describes how stories can help remind us of the ‘main character’ in the story, and to keep the person receiving care and support at the centre of things. This is reinforced when Georgie shares the experiences of other parent carers who took part in ‘Lockdown Cinderella’, a project which used the familiar format of fairytales to make sense of their carer experiences – resulting in carers feeling ‘heard’ and able to process experiences, and even finding solutions to situations they were experiencing at the time. Shownotes are available at https://www.researchinpractice.org.uk/adults/content-pages/podcasts/storytelling-and-social-care/.