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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

Violence shapes the lives, experiences, and dreams of countless individuals each year. Although an alarming number of people are at some point in their lives affected by hate-motivated attacks, physical and sexual assault, political persecution, institutional violence, or family abuse, few opportunities exist for them to tell their stories in their own words. In an effort to help survivors and witnesses of violence access their creativity, move towards recovery, and join the forefront of violence prevention and social justice work, The Center for Digital Storytelling (CDS) has created Silence Speaks.

Silence Speaks workshops blend creative writing, digital media manipulation, and facilitative production methods to offer survivors a separate, intimate space for personal exploration and collective healing. Through a process of scripting, recording, image selection, and editing, Silence Speaks participants produce short digital videos of courage and healing. An additional important goal of Silence Speaks is to take these videos, or “digital stories,” to broad audiences, as a way of promoting anti-violence organizing, public understanding about the complexities of violence, and social justice.

In this session, an audience of varied levels of knowledge and experience will learn about the program's 6-year history of working nationally and internationally; view selected digital stories from the U.S., South Africa, and Australia; become familiar with the Silence Speaks workshop process; and hear findings from a qualitative evaluation of the program. By the end of the session, participants will have a broad understanding of how digital storytelling can support violence survivors and promote prevention.

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

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• List three ways in which the process of digital storytelling facilitates healing from violence and abuse, for workshop participants.
• Describe the digital storytelling workshop process, as carried out by Silence Speaks.
• Articulate three examples of how digital stories have been used as training and community education tools addressing/prevention violence.

Keywords: Violence Prevention, New Technology

Related Web page: www.silencespeaks.org

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation