A warm welcome to my storytelling blog

Thank you for looking at my blog.
Stories can please, thrill, delight, enchant, challenge, distract, tease, disappoint, anger, charm, patronize, disgust, beguile......
But I personaly believe thay can do no harm.
I would be delighted if you were to leave feed back.
Thanks!

20 Apr 2010

Horatio in Prague

I have just returned from the 2nd international psychiatric nurses congress which was held in the beautiful city of Prague. Despite the volcano Eyjafjallojokull shrugging her shoulders and causing travel chaos, I did return only 24 hours later that expected, but that is an other story of adventure and a happy ending!

Horatio is an association which started as a network for psychiatric/mental health nurses in 2005. It was officially established as an association in April 2006. It has two aims:
  • To advocate for the interest of the members by providing in-put into the decision making process on issues relevant to psychiatric/mental health nursing in Europe
  • Aims to promote the development of psychiatric/mental health nursing practice, education, management and research.

I presented a workshop there on storytelling and the possible applications it can have in a mental health setting. 22 people attended the workshop. I explained a bit about who I am. I explained what I mean by storytelling, the work I have done at Llanarth Court Hospital in the past two years and what results I have experienced on the wards and patient feed back. I also had a bit of time to tell a short story. The hour I had seemed very short. There were lots of relevant questions from the participants. The immediate feed back was positive. I would have liked to have done more activities with the group and enabled them to experience more of the fun of a storytelling club, but there just was not enough time.

I hope I have planted a seed for some of my nursing colleagues. If you are one of the people that took part in the workshop and you liked what you heard, tell others. If you liked the story I told, its not mine to keep so tell it to your patients and pass it on. That is what storytelling is about. Please leave feed back too if you attended the workshop. Thank you.

11 Apr 2010

It been a while

I've missed filling in the blog the last while just because I have been busy doing other things, all to do with storytelling of course!
I've just got back from the hospital and thought I'd sit down and catch up strait away. Since the last time I blogged I've done four clubs on the wards, and impromptu storytelling on the ward I work on day to day. I have started taking objects into the wards, such as a fan, some silk roses one red one white, some un-carded wool, a rough old root from a tree that looks like a lot of different creatures, depending on how you look at it. A Russian doll, a piece of colourful fabric. The idea is to create a story or just explore where the objects came from? Who's where they? Are they magical? are they quite ordinary? The seem to spice up the imagination and create a sense of fun.
I've also been working on a hand-out for the workshop I'll be doing next Saturday at the International Psychiatric nurses Congress in Prague. Needless to say I have also been quite preoccupied with preparing the actual workshop too. I am looking forward to it with mixed feelings of worry and exhilaration. In the next week or two the article I wrote will be published in the 'Quality Network In Forensic Mental Health Newsletter'. Watch this blog to get the link.
Sadly I could not make the Newent Storytelling club due to work commitments but did go to the Wolverhampton club run by Peter Chand. It was very vibrant and good to be able to tell a story to so many listeners, and listen to so many stories. If anybody is wondering whether its worth going to Wolverhampton for the storytelling club, I'd say its well worth it.