I’ve been working with a lot of people in the retirement and aged care sectors and I’m hearing common themes:
- It is considered best-practice for coordinators to delve into people’s lives as a tool for giving individual care
- Delving into people’s lives is seen as best-practice CDC (particularly during coordinator/client meetings)
- Coordinators (and other workers) are given no training in being aware of the potential triggers (potential harm)
- Organisations are wanting individuals to share these stories as a promotional tool
- While the value of personal stories are discussed at all levels, no resources are allocated
- Story collection is being done as an ‘add on’ or ‘extra’ – on top of other work
- Aged-care service providers (the frontline workers) hear extremely personal stories all the time and often think “I wish others could hear this”.
- Many frontline staff & managers are wanting to collect stories but:
- don’t know where to start
- don’t have dedicated time for story collection
- don’t have dedicated budget for story collection
- are concerned about client wellbeing
- are concerned about their own wellbeing
There is a personal story behind every answer to your CDC questionnaire.
You may not be counsellors or therapists but there are things you can do to
reduce the risk of emotional triggers and prepare for triggers that do occur –
by becoming a Best-Practice Story Seeker.
One of the reasons I began teaching people from private business, community groups, and government departments SAFE & PURPOSEFUL STORY SEEKING is because I was tired of hearing people hiding behind their job title to defend their lack of consideration for potential harm. Things like:
- Oh but this isn’t a counselling session so I don’t need to worry about duty of care
- But I’m JUST asking about their career
- But I’m JUST asking about our services
- But I’m JUST asking about their family
- But I’m JUST asking about their hobbies
- But I’m JUST asking about their medical conditions
When I was collecting oral histories for the National Film and Sound Archives, I always gave interviewers and interviewees my spiel about the potential for emotional triggers when asking people to delve into their memories and current life. I accompanied this discussion with some tips of what options they had should one become emotional or something unexpected come up during the discussion (and they were always given a box of tissues!). Because we were usually collecting stories around someone’s career (acting, directing, audio engineering, design etc) I was usually met with “Oh Jen, we are JUST going to be talking about their career”.
One of the many examples of when this trigger-preparation discussion was to become useful was when an elderly Australian man who had a very successful career was asked the seemingly ‘safe’ question ‘Why didn’t you accept the role and returned to Australia instead?’ It was a great role you would have been perfect for it’. He went white as a sheet, sat bolt-upright and after a moment of an obvious emotional trigger replied ‘I haven’t spoken about this for 30 years. We had a stillborn child and decided to come home.’ Both interviewer and interviewee were shaken by this, stopped the interview and came to see me where we went through their options regarding the recordings and debriefing for both.
All questions are potential triggers – even the seemingly innocent/safe ones.
Anyone who asks others to delve into their memories, experiences and values inherits a duty of care (whether you like it or not).
You may not be counsellors or therapists but there are things you can do to reduce the risk of emotional triggers and prepare for triggers that do occur – including becoming a Best-Practice Story Seeker.
Collecting and sharing client stories currently seems to be seen as either a community engagement tool OR marketing tool, different process and outcome frameworks (and budgets). Done well, ethical and powerful story seeking combines the two beautifully with empowering processes and outcomes for both. I am starting to see more organisations send a representative staff member from both sections to my training – with a renewed sense of (as one participant put it) “respectful marketing” that empowers the client, promotes the service AND staff confidence.
Best-Practice Story Seeking combines:
- Strength-Based Community Development
- Narrative Therapy
- Storytelling (including Digital Storytelling)
