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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Recorded presentation

Amy Hill, MA, Center for Digital Storytelling, 1803 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Berkeley, CA 94709, 510-548-2065, amylenita@storycenter.org

An alarming number of children and youth enter the foster care system each year – most due to abuse and neglect. Many are then further traumatized by systems set up to assist them; adults working with adolescents can be so overburdened by a lack of resources that they lose sight of the individual stories of those they seek to support. In order to help current and former foster youth move towards healing and make their voices heard within adolescent provider and policy advocacy communities, the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project has been created.

The Bay Area Academy (BAA) builds the professional skills of child welfare and other adolescent providers. The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS; www.storycenter.org) offers workshops that combine writing exercises, art therapy, and facilitative media production to assist individuals in creating short digital videos of courage and survival. As partners on the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project, the two groups are conducting digital storytelling workshops tailored for current and former foster youth diverse in race/ethnicity, sex/gender identity, and sexual orientation. Through a youth development model, the storytellers are supported in developing and implementing provider trainings about the needs of foster youth. Digital stories are a central learning tool, in these trainings.

In this session, CDS staff will show a series of youth-produced digital stories and discuss how personal narrative and visual media can be key components for empowering foster youth, building the skills of adolescent providers for empathy and connection, and educating policymakers about the needs of youth in care.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant will be able to

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• Articulate the importance of involving current/former foster youth in projects designed to train youth providers about issues facing youth in care.
• Describe the digital storytelling workshop process as carried out by the Y.O.U.T.H. Training Project.
• Identify at least three examples of how the Y.O.U.T.H. training project has improved the health/well-being of current/former foster youth.

Keywords: Adolescents, New Technology

Related Web page: www.storycenter.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation