Storytelling and Trauma
CPI’s storytelling program is designed to help children process trauma by providing a safe space.
We use multi-media approaches, guide the storytelling process, build resilience, foster community, integrate play, and ensure long-term impact.
Through this comprehensive approach, we aim to help children heal, grow, and thrive.
The Healing Power of Storytelling and Play
Trauma can leave lasting scars on children, but there are powerful tools available to help them process their experiences and begin healing. Storytelling and play offer a unique combination of emotional expression, creative exploration, and social connection. Our approach incorporates several key elements to ensure children can explore their emotions and experiences in a supportive environment.
CPI’s storytelling program provides a safe, open-ended platform for traumatized children to explore their thoughts and feelings. It allows them to express their experiences in their own words, using their own creative interpretations, such as drawing and discussions.
The Significance of Stories and Metaphors
The significance of stories and metaphors lies in their ability to bridge our inner and social worlds.
Stories that resonate with us create a safe space for children to connect with their inner selves while reaching outwards into their social environments. They can remove themselves from the sometimes confronting, first-person narratives of their immediate realities.
Through metaphor and symbolism, they connect to a deeper sense of self without becoming lost there
Challenges and CPI’s Approach
- Challenges: Trauma can lead to dissociation, where memories are encoded in a sensory way rather than linguistically, making it difficult for children to articulate their experiences. Multi-media storytelling, which combines different creative forms such as drawing, theater, singing or discussions, can help address this challenge.
- CPI’s Approach: To help children express their emotions and experiences, team leaders and teachers can use open-ended questions and create a supportive environment. This can facilitate a gradual process of understanding and articulation. CPI also encourages drawing, as it helps children express feelings they many not have the language for yet.
Creating a Safe Space
Through our partners on the ground, CPI provides a safe and non-judgmental space for children to share their stories. The “safe space” environment allows children to express their thoughts and feelings freely, without fear of criticism or misunderstanding. The goal is to make them feel heard and validated, which is essential for healing.
Our partners report that this experience fosters empathy and understanding between children from different cultures and beliefs.
This is especially important in locations with displaced children.
Storytelling Helps Children Explore Their Thoughts
- Storytelling empowers children to freely explore their thoughts and emotions without constraints.
- There’s no pressure to stick to facts, create a complete narrative, or express everything at once.
This open-ended format allows them to process complex feelings, often expressed through “emotional facts,” which may take time and space to fully articulate. Encouraging children to tell their stories, even in fragmented or incomplete forms, fosters reflection and encourages them to continue exploring their experiences in other creative ways, like art or dance.
Storytelling Helps Children Looking Forward
Storytelling empowers children to look beyond the past and prepare for the future. By sharing stories, children learn to
- Be proactive: They develop strategies to avoid danger and help others in similar situations. storytelling helps children to form forward-facing connections and to begin thinking about what they would do in another crisis to avoid danger.
- Gain agency: They share their feelings, offer solutions, and engage in mutual support within the community.
- Build a caring community: Storytelling fosters empathy, understanding, and shared values, helping children coordinate their emotions and interests with others.
How Storytelling Can Help Heal Trauma
For children, storytelling enhances emotional intelligence, fosters creativity, and aids language development. Participating in storytelling gatherings helps children gain a sense of belonging, learn important life lessons, and develop critical thinking skills, contributing to their overall growth and well-being.
The Importance of Listening
- Storytelling empowers children to process trauma by helping them reconstruct their experiences, find meaning in themes of resilience and hope, and move forward from unresolved feelings. This process allows children to feel empowered and find strength in their ability to survive and thrive, even when facing difficult emotions.
- Storytelling helps children cope with strong emotions by transforming raw feelings into organized narratives. This separation allows them to develop coping skills, shifting their focus from immediate distress to future possibilities.
- Group storytelling empowers individuals and strengthens communities. Sharing and reimagining traumatic experiences helps individuals gain control, while collaborative narratives foster shared understanding, security, and belonging, especially for children.
Play: A Language of Healing
Play is not just fun for children; it’s a fundamental way they learn, grow, and process the world.
For traumatized children, play offers a safe space for healing and resilience-building.
How Play & Storytelling Can Help Heal Trauma
An Example In Action
The Birdwings Forest School in Australia utilizes storytelling to help children who have experienced trauma from wildfires.
They encourage children to share their experiences, explore their feelings, and envision a future where they can thrive.
The Long-Term Impact of Storytelling
By continuously engaging children in storytelling and creative activities, CPI and our local partners help children develop long-term coping mechanisms. The skills they acquire through these sessions enable them to navigate future challenges more effectively, contributing to their overall mental and emotional well-being.
In summary, CPI’s storytelling program is designed to help children process trauma by providing a safe space, using multi-media approaches, guiding the storytelling process, building resilience, fostering community, integrating play, and ensuring long-term impact. Through this comprehensive approach, we aim to help children heal, grow, and thrive.
On a Final Note
Storytelling and play are powerful tools that can help traumatized children heal, build resilience, and find a sense of hope. By creating a supportive and understanding environment where children feel safe to express themselves, we can empower them to navigate their emotional landscapes and begin the journey towards recovery.
Storytelling for children is play-based learning at its best and brings the community together. This important activity is rarely part of a school’s curriculum so we develop a Storytelling Manual for extracurricular activities.
Further Reading
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Navigate Emotions Through Storytelling
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Creating Safe Spaces Empowers Children To Share Traumatic Experiences. -
Introducing Our New Family Storytelling Guide -
CPI Launches New Storytelling Program In Uganda -
Harvard's Mara Krechevsky Talks Theory of Multiple Intelligences (TMI) -
Interview with Susan Linn, Champion of Play-Based Learning. -
Fadi J Khoury On Finding Peace Through Art -
Exclusive Interview with Professor Caroline Beauregard.
