StoriesWork: Interactive Storytelling and Domestic Abuse

Abstract

Domestic violence is a serious public health issue that cries out for new measures to protect families and communities. Interactive storytelling, an innovative technique developed by the nonprofit organization StoriesWork, promotes empowerment, insight, and sound decision making while easing the confusion, isolation, shame, and secrecy that surround domestic violence. The technique involves narrating a short folktale followed by a probing question and answer period in a safe, nonthreatening, and nonjudgmental environment. StoriesWork holds interactive storytelling workshops for staff and volunteers, abused women, allied professionals, and the general public. Transcript excerpts from a StoriesWork interactive storytelling workshop for staff and volunteers reveal provocative questions about a folktale and insightful answers that uncover layers of meaning hidden in a folktale on the subject of domestic abuse. Testimonials from workshop “graduates” and anecdotal incidents speak to the value of this technique.