Staff representing the UK Human Development Institute (HDI) recently completed training to expand their capacity to capture and deliver digital stories. Staff from HDI along with partners at Utah State University participated in a six-hour D.I.Y. facilitator training with StoryCorps. Through this training, staff gained an understanding of the facilitation method, interview best practices, and an understanding of the archival process. The model will be replicated in the story collection efforts of the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities National Training Center. This center is an HDI project and partnership between the University of Kentucky, Utah State University, and the University of Alaska – Anchorage.
HDI has a long history of sharing the lived experiences of people with disabilities. The information gained in the training will be used across HDI projects. Using the StoryCorps facilitation model, project staff formalize these efforts to collect, archive, and centralize stories for use by staff, partners, and the public. A unique angle of this the digital story collection efforts at HDI is the use of self-advocates to conduct interviews. Patti Singleton, Professional Learning Coordinator, explains that HDI is currently exploring and refining this process, which will allow for collaboration with partners, and other UK colleges and departments.
StoryCorps is a National Public Radio (NPR) partnered organization that streamlines the process of interviews, openly allows the contributions of the entire public, and travels internationally to provide an avenue for people to interview each other for a variety of purposes. All interviews are also archived at the Library of Congress. Examples can be found at the StoryCorps website at https://storycorps.org. Additional information about the D.I.Y. facilitation training is available online https://storycorps.org/participate/storycorps-diy/.
Contact patti.naber@uky.edu to learn more about the HDI Digital Storytelling Series or the MHDD National Training Center Storytelling Project.
