Therapeutic Storytelling: Using stories to support children through challenging times

Paola Mercado

Hello, and welcome everyone to our In Focus Be You Webinar, using therapeutic storytelling to support children through challenging times. My name is Paola Mercado and presenting alongside onscreen with me is Sally Hodges, and we are both Be You consultants with Early Childhood Australia.

Whilst we are allowing all of our participants to join our virtual room, we'd like to share with you some background information about Be You. So if now's the time that you'd like to get comfortable and get yourself a cup of water. Go for it.

Be You is a national initiative led by Beyond Blue. It is in partnership with Early Childhood Australia, and headspace. We are funded by the Australian Government. Be You as an initiative aims to transform Australia's approach to supporting children and young people's mental health in Early Learning Services, and schools inclusive of school-aged care settings.

The vision of Be You is that every Early Learning community is positive, inclusive, and resilient. It's a place where every child, young person, educator and family can achieve their best possible mental health.

Being part of a Be You community means that your Early Learning Service, school, or school-aged care setting has access to Be You consultants to assist you to contextualise how you engage with Be You, including your planning and actions throughout all of your implementation phases wherever that may be for you, and to make sure that it is reflective of your own learning community's current priorities and focus.

If your school or service is not already registered and participating within Be You, we welcome you today, and it's great that you've joined us. Thank you for being here. There are also some links that are being shared in the chat as we speak, and some information in there as well to give you a bit more knowledge about how to register with Be You.

If you're already participating with Be You, welcome back online and a reminder to go back to the website or connect with your consultant after this session if you choose to. Over to you Sally.

Sally Hodges

I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the sovereigns of the land which I'm joining from and pay my respects to elders, past and present. I would like to extend this respect to the traditional owners of the land that everyone is joining from and welcome all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who are joining us today.

So we are all here today to consider, learn, and reflect on early childhood, mental health and wellbeing. A sense of safety can support everyone's mental health. So it's important that in this space you feel safe. You share only what you're comfortable sharing in our polls and in the chat, and that we all maintain confidentiality with anything that you add in the chat or hear from others. Helplines will be posted in the chat throughout this Webinar, so please access if you need. So please remember to take care of yourselves as we talk about mental health today.

Paola Mercado

Now, to the technical bits. Some of us may be quite familiar with this Zoom Webinar platform. For others, it could be a little bit new. So on your screen there's a couple of supports and helps that maybe may enhance your experience and maximise your experience today. So if you would like to choose just speaker view, you can do so, and that will only pin the person who is speaking to your screen. If you require Zoom support or any IT assistance, you're best to visit the Zoom help centre, and we are providing those links in the chat, if you need them.

Also today, because it is a Webinar, we have 2 functions in which you can participate. We have the questions box, which is an icon that's the Q&A. It should be sitting at the bottom of your screen, if you hover over the Q&A. This box is for you to ask a question directly of panellists and the presenters and we also have the chat functionality open for you all today.

You could share comments with each other, and also with everyone who is here participating in the Webinar. It will be really important that if you do use the chat function in the field. That is, that says To, please choose the drop down menu that reflects on everyone, and that way everybody will be able to participate in a joint conversation through the chat box, and we can already see lots of participants adding to the chat box. I've already seen Jodie, who is joining us from Darkinjung land on Central Coast. So welcome, Jodie, and there's a few others that I will attempt to have a look at as we go through.

With the Q&A Box. We are hoping to respond to as many of your questions that come through today, either in the Webinar space, but we do invite you to remain online after our Webinar, as we will have a Q&A space after this, where we will hope to continue to answer questions. If we haven't had time to answer during our Webinar. That space will also be a space for you to participate and possibly unmute yourself as well.

Before we move on, we'd like to let you know that all the links and references that we are sharing today, so resources and references that we choose to share with you today, they will be posted in the chat. However, we have also developed a downloadable handout that contains all of the relative links and resources that we will be talking to and talking about and sharing with you. So we do encourage you to download that handout at any particular time. We will try and share this handout at various times throughout the Webinar, and in there you will find some additional reflective questions that may be useful if you'd like to consider taking that back to your learning community and continue your discussions about what you are learning here today.

Post this Webinar, so approximately 2 days after this Webinar, there will be an email sent out containing a link for access to the recording. With this access to the recording, you will also get a certificate of attendance for being here today. Along with that there will be a link to complete a survey, so that you can provide feedback to us, and we can improve and think about other ways of presenting Webinars to you.

Non-attendees will also receive this email, and this will also be sent in the in coming days, containing the link to the recording of the Webinar. Beyond this, the Webinar will actually sit on our website, and that will take a little bit longer.

So thank you for being here today, and also while I'm saying thank you, I'd like to thank the background team that has supported us in being here. So we have Dino, Nathan, Maria, and Deb. They're all working behind the scenes for us and supporting us to get through today.

Just before we get into all of the things that we are getting to, I'd also like to highlight that on March 13th at 1:30 PM, a Be You Spotlight will directly relate to this Webinar, and registration is being made available only to those who are in attendance today. So, after the link, after the Webinar, you will be provided with the link to register, if you like to continue the conversation about that.

Okay. Now about today. Here we go. Once again. My name is Paola, and alongside me we have Sally, and at this point in time I would like to formally introduce our guest presenters that are with us today. So on screen coming on at the moment. We have Dr Andrea Baldwin and Sharleen Keleher from Queensland Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health.

Welcome to both of you, and thank you so much for sharing your time with us here today.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Hi, everybody!

Paola Mercado

A quick outline of what we will be talking about today is we have a lot of content to get through, so we hope to be able to condense it all for you. But we are thinking of looking at a total frame of what therapeutic storytelling is, and why it's useful, and also thinking about the elements and the practicalities for educators who will be using therapeutic storytelling within this setting.

So Andrea will be talking to a model of therapeutic storytelling, and hopefully, we'll discuss techniques and adaptations as we can use them in our daily practices.

And of course we want to get into: how does therapeutic storytelling fit into the disaster and recovery timeline as well, and other considerations that we might have there.

So even outlining the content of today, I feel like it's quite a full webinar. So we're hoping to get through. So we'll get straight into it, and I'll throw over to Sharleen and Andrea in giving us an overview of what is therapeutic storytelling.

Sharleen Keleher

Sorry I couldn't unmute my apologies Andrea, you can go if you'd like.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Well, therapeutic storytelling is kind of a bit what it sounds like as in its telling a story; storytelling for the purpose of helping and healing. So to help or to heal some aspect of the hearer's emotional experience. And we particularly talk about resilience. So therapeutic storytelling is a way to build young children's resilience before, during or after any kind of stressful thing that might happen in their lives. It's a way to help them to prepare for things that could happen, to cope with things that might be happening, and to process things or recover from things that have stressed them or caused them concern.

I think it's probably important to clarify that we're not asking early childhood educators or parents, or other adults to be therapists per se as in clinical psychologists for people who are trained in clinical therapeutic work. We're using the word therapeutic to mean it supports wellness, it supports wellbeing

Sharleen Keleher

Absolutely. And I think the important part of this is we process these emotional experiences that we're having, and supporting the children to do that as well. So through story, through sharing story, children learn about these disruptive things that might be happening, the challenges they might be experiencing, or other people have experienced, and they get to explore that in a safe and supported environment, with caring adults and friends around them.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

But I also like to highlight the aspect of story, because I do find there’s a lot of confusion about books or picture books, for somebody will say, "oh, that's a storybook", but it's not necessarily a story. There are a lot of books and resources out there that are actually non-fiction, there to tell something to children or explain something to them or to introduce something to them, and a story is a fictional narrative. So we'll talk a little bit more about what the different aspects of it are. But I do want people to think when you think once upon a time, or when you think Cinderella, or when you think of a fiction story that's imaginative and creative, and engages you emotionally, there are characters, there's plot, there's setting, there's things happening, that's what we're talking about.

So we're not sort of stepping through in a non-fiction way to say, oh, this might happen, that might happen. We're talking about the use of a story and the power of story as an art form, as an aesthetic thing.

Story is special, and I think some sometimes people don't necessarily understand that distinction, the fact that there are different kinds of books, and story is special. Stories aren't always in a book, either.

Sharleen Keleher

I was just going to add, if it's okay, that's probably a perfect opportunity to talk a bit about some of the stories that you might find.

So we do a lot of work in the space of disaster, resilience, and recovery. And Andrea is one of our very talented authors alongside being a psychologist, so we have a series of storybooks called Birdie's Tree that explore some of these challenging experiences, so really started off around disasters and the experiences of those big scary things that can happen sometimes.

And they were developed specifically to support young children, so children under 5, to understand what happens when a storm happens or a flood. But in a way that, like Andrea was saying, it's following a narrative, while Birdie and Mr. Frog, actually, I should just, Birdie and Mr. Frog are never far from me.

Paola Mercado

You brought friends along! It's great to see those friends here.

Sharleen Keleher

They experience some challenging times, and they work through it together with their friends, and it's through that narrative that the child and the adults come along with Birdie and Mr. Frog to face those challenges, come together, and come to a resolution as well. So see things starting to come back to normal, even though they might be a bit different.

Paola Mercado

You've touched on so many things in there that, if you don't mind I'm going to pull out and tease out a little bit more with you. But, Andrea, I really like how you highlighted that the term therapeutic storytelling is that, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's delivered in a therapeutic way.

But in saying that it also makes me think about how it can be supportive of both the children who are going through these experiences, but also the educators who are using storytelling in such powerful way, and I just love the sentence "story is special", like I love that in itself, the concept of how powerful storytelling can be, and the benefits of storytelling. So when we apply it in this therapeutic way, then it makes sense that it has all of these benefits to it.

And of course, your series of Birdie's Tree books. I know that I have seen them, and I have had experience with them, and I feel like it's a fabulous resource. So we have actually put the link to Birdie's Tree not only in the chat, but it's also in the download, in the handout.

What I did want to also discuss a little bit more is, Sharleen when you brought the puppets out, I know that as educators, we are constantly thinking about ways of how we enhance our storytelling and having those puppets is really useful. But it becomes quite an easy way to approach therapeutic storytelling. So not necessarily do educators need to have the experience of these stories, and delivering them in this particular way.

And again, as educators, we're always telling stories. So can we talk about the elements that storytelling provide, or the things that we need to think about that we probably already do in our daily practice, that we don't often connect with the therapeutic storytelling side of it.

Sharleen Keleher

Absolutely. Sorry we're both looking at each other, going. Who's going to go first?

I think coming, so my background is in teaching, so I've come from that background and really grounded in that like that practical, everyday thing that we do. And how does this connect to what we do, as a teacher, as an educator already? So that relationship building is actually something that's really really a fundamental part of coming together and sharing stories, that connecting between, the connection between children and adults, providing a sense of safety as well in that we're sharing a story, and we're all supported and respecting each other.

Also sorry, I'm just trying to, I think I'm predicting what Andrea is going to say, so I'll just kick it back over to her.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

No, I was just going to link that to familiarity. The fact that because as an educator you're just so central and important in children's lives, you're one of the adults that they trust, that they look to, that they know keeps them safe, and they look to you, for how should I appraise this situation? Should I be worried about this situation? So your calmness and coping models for them, it's okay, we don't have to be extremely distressed about what's going on, we can get through this, just as a familiar figure, and as a trusted adult. What Sharleen was saying about that sense of connection and attunement, the fact that you're watching them and listening to them and picking up their cues about how they're feeling that you do that as you move through your day.

But doing it in the course of telling stories with children. You notice, if Will looks frightened when you mention the thunder and lightning, or you know. Sometimes I get groups of kids making the noises of the storm together, and somebody - that's too much for them: that's sensory overload for them. So that attunement, that noticing what they need and responding to them in, it's kind of more intensified in the environment of therapeutic storytelling, I think.

But I know the other thing I always like to talk about is co-regulation. So it's very, very difficult to read a beautiful children's story with a child that's got a beginning, middle and end, and people cope, and you go through big feelings, and everybody comes out safely in the end, without that helping you to calm you down as well. It's actually a really good thing for educators and parents to do with children. It's good for their mental health as well as for the children to actually.

It's a very beautiful dance. It's a relationship that you're going through as you're going through the storytelling experience.

Paola Mercado

That's exactly the word that kept jumping out at me because it all sits in that relationship, because you have to have that sense of, as you were saying, familiarity that provides the calmness. It provides that connection. You already have that existing connection. So in this space it just works so well, and that relationship is reciprocal. So it's 2 way. So you both can do that, and often as educators, we try and have the solution, or you know, fix things. And sometimes the story actually supports that we may not have all the answers at once, but there's certainly hope that together we can. We can get them get to those answers. So, providing that space, having that safety, a calm environment, that connectedness to those sorts of things we do on a daily basis. It's part of our practices that we do already

So in incorporating those and being aware of that, as you say, supporting that co-regulation, being attuned and noticing these things is what makes the story telling a little bit more intentional in the therapeutic way.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Yes, one of my favourite sayings in that space is, you don't have to have all the answers. You are the answer. Because even if you can't explain why has this happened, or what are we going to do, or you know, or have the answers, the child is looking to you for that reassurance, and that sense that it's going to be okay in the end, that safety.

So sometimes that's a really reassuring thing to know, to take a big breath and go, I don't need to know the answers. I don't need to be the person who can solve all of this. I just need to be the person who's there for that child.

Sally Hodges

That's an amazing message, Andrea. And you know, educators are in such a unique role to support children before during and after a disaster. And in this context we might refer to the educator as the teller, the teller of the story. What other elements outside of the teller should we consider? And how can they be used to support children? And I'm going to put something on the screen to display this.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

So this is the model that I like to use to explain the elements of story therapeutic storytelling, if you like. And this is from a long history of communications theory, behaviour change theory, and literary criticism, and I've sort of distilled it down. And the guys have made some beautiful little illustrations of this. So if we think about the therapeutic storytelling experience, these are the five, just to simplify it, these are the five things I like to think about.

So the story itself and that story might be from book, it might be from oral history, it might be from a poem, or a song, or a nursery rhyme, you might have made it up. I do caution, when you make up stories, you have to remember all the bits, because the children will challenge you, if you forget any or you get it wrong. But the story could come from many different sources. It's not necessarily in a book. And sometimes you make up a story about the child, like you put the child in as a character to help them to process their experience. So I know people do that quite a lot. You know, it was time for morning tea. Max really loved bananas. And children love to be in their own stories. So there's the story.

There's the person telling the story, the teller. So in this case this will usually be you as the educator, but it's also useful if you're in a situation where someone else is telling the story to go. Okay, that person is the teller and I'm supporting that process.

The hearer in this case is the child or the children.

The context is everything around that interaction. So the room that they're in, the time of day, who else is there, what's just happened, what's happened in the broader community? You know what the linkages are in the broader community, what knowledge and wisdom are they going to bring into their understanding of the story that they're hearing. So everything about the context in which the story is being told.

And then the dynamic bit is the interactions among those different things. So the multitude of interactions among the story, the teller, the hearer, and the context.

So I have many, many things to say about all of those elements. So I might let people ask questions about that.

Paola Mercado

Well, actually, good call on that. We've had a beautiful comment from Christine in the chat, who says that I think finishing the story is not a goal in itself, but the conversation with eye contact. Joint attention is more important, and I think that's fixed to all of that through the modelling as well. We're incorporating all the things that are happening, and you know, as you said, with interactions and all the multitude of factors happening in that particular environment. That's where the power of the storytelling comes in.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Can I just demonstrate that, I was working with the little girl the other day, and she's not quite 2, and so she didn't have the attention span to listen to the whole story. She wasn't that interested in the whole story. She was really interested in the book. So she loved the sense of agency, of being able to turn some pages and go forward, and then go back. And oh my goodness, those drawings are still there. Those pictures are the same as they were the first time, and to close the book and to flip it open to open it from the back. She was having a ball.

So she and I were just having this interaction around, if she looked at me I might read some of what was on the page, or I might point to a drawing, sorry, an illustration, and she might enjoy that for a second. But then she wanted to turn the page, and I said yes, we'd turn the page, and oh look, Mr. Fox doing so and so! So yes, it's not just a story read from beginning to end. It's about all of these interactions, and what that's doing for the relationship and for the child, and for their emotions, and sense of self, and sense of self-efficacy and agency, and all the things that build that resilience and help that child learn and grow and develop.

So it's not, I don't want to make it simple, and then linear, and that was a beautiful comment. Thank you very much, for that.

Sally Hodges

Agency is a great point, isn't it, because it does give children a sense of autonomy if they can revisit the book as many times as they want, or if they can close the book when it's not appropriate for them, which I guess is all part of the context. Isn't it.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Yes, or throw it across the room, or hide it under the bed. And as somebody just said, many children need stories over and over again. They love stories over and over again.

I've got a beautiful story of a little 4-year-old during the floods up in Townsville. She carried Birdie and the Flood around, clutched to her chest, and offered it to everybody that she came across. So if every parent, educator, grandma, she wanted people to read the story with her over and over again, and that was her way of processing her experiences with the floods. And you know she did come through really well, but that was what she wanted to just have the same story, over and over and over and over in its own familiarity. It became comforting, and it helped her to process her experiences, which were very similar to Birdie's.

Paola Mercado

And I guess the flip side of that is unknowingly, that child is also supporting the adults around her or people around her, to have that experience, and exposing them to this therapeutic story that is supporting them throughout that journey as well.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Yes. And that story has a happy ending. So Birdie loses her home, but it gets rebuilt in the end, which is exactly what happened for the little one. So she was able to hold on to that hope, and, as you say, help the adults around her to hold on to that hope until it became real. It was real in the story, by repeating the story over and over again, it became real for her in real life.

Sharleen Keleher

I just wanted to add to that. I keep thinking back on that story. So this particular little girl I had rebuilt, their family had rebuilt the house afterwards, and the educators were talking with this child about her experiences like, what does your house look like now? And she talked about how it's the same, but it's different. And that she connected with Birdie's rebuilt home. That looked the same, but there were some different things as well, and they were able to talk about that, and talk about how she felt about that, and how she was excited, that she had some new toys, and she was happy that she had some of her old familiar toys, but a bit sad as well for having lost some things that she really loved.

So it was a lovely process of connecting and going beyond the story to connect to her experiences of a big change in her life.

Sally Hodges

I mean, it's been so great to hear these stories, and I think they're more evidence to how powerful stories are. So thank you for sharing them.

So if educators leave this Webinar and they're really keen to implement, you know therapeutic storytelling tomorrow, how would they go about selecting or adapting a story?

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Hmm. Well, obviously, you would think about what do I want this story to achieve? So you kind of start by thinking about your hearers rather than by thinking about the story. So thinking about you hearers in your context.

So, for example, say there's been something stressful that's happened in your community, and you know that the children are, for example, on a bit on edge or distressed. There might be one particular child that was more affected, or is showing more signs of being affected. And so firstly you're thinking about. What is the need here. What do I think that I might be able to help with by choosing the right story? Then you're kind of looking for the story that might be likely to help, and because I'm not feeling very creative and imaginative, I'm just going to go with one I know, an example of one I really know.

So say there have been a lot of storms lately, and the children are very edgy, because today it's cloudy again. They stand out in the air, and there's one, a small boy who's very, you know he's scared of storms. He gets really distressed. So you might go, well, I know, Birdie in the Storm is a good story for helping children to understand that. So that might be why you select that particular story.

Now you might need to think about. How do I get this story? So maybe that young fella he doesn't have very great attention span because he's quite little and young. So how might I adapt that story? Well, maybe I'm not going to read every word. Maybe I'm just going to sort of start with. Who are Birdie and Mr. Frog, and then we're going to go to the storm page with the thunder and lightning.

You’ve got to think about how you're going to support wellbeing through the story. How are you going to monitor him and the other children in terms of how they're reacting or responding. We can talk more about techniques for conversational reading techniques. But you also might want to know right from the start how am I likely to expand this, because he's not going to concentrate on the story, or that group aren't going to concentrate on the story for a long period of time. What are we going to do out of the story. So maybe we're going to play some rain games. Maybe we have umbrellas and gumboots handy and dress up rain raincoats, and we're going to play walking in the rain, we're gonna go singing in the rain. Maybe I've got a video that I can show from singing in the rain that the kids might enjoy. Maybe we're going to get the musical instruments and create rain, a rainstorm.

So right from the start you think about what is the need that I'm trying to meet, how are these hearers going to benefit from this story? What's a good story? What might I need to do to adapt that story? How am I going to support the well-being of the children through the experience? How am I going to use my storytelling techniques? You know my face, voice, body, gesture. How am I going to set up the space? How are we going to be oriented to each other? Are we all going to sit on the floor together? Am I going to sit on the chair? Well, I use props and puppets. Well, I get the kids involved in using Birdie and Mr. Frog props and puppets, or other props and puppets. And how are we going to expand that storytelling and build on that story, so that it becomes a complete therapeutic experience and benefits them in lots of different ways.

Sharleen, you've got lots of practical experience in this. Would you like to build on that?

Sharleen Keleher

I actually, I wanted to go right back to the selecting stories to start with, because we were talking about this quite a while ago, where we were not just looking at disasters, but looking at other challenging experiences that little ones may come across in their lives and looking at different books, and I know I spent ages sitting on a floor in front, in a library, picking through all sorts of books and looking at them.

We did end up, and I know many educators will already have a really good sense of what books that they have, that talk about challenging experiences, but also emotion, talking about emotions, talking about problem-solving, making friends, all those kinds of things. We did put together a couple of books about some of the challenging experiences that we can share alongside the resources that come out with this Webinar, and we really encourage you to develop a bank of books that you can access that will help with that.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

And feel free to let us know about them, too. We are gradually building up, this is quick hijack to Birdie's Tree, so we're gradually building up a library of little, their brochures, of books that are particularly suitable for children in the early years. So there are so many books that have been written for primary school students about all sorts of things, but books for little people can be harder to come by.

So we've got a brochure about natural disaster. Well, we got one of the Birdie books, we've got one about, other people's books about natural disasters. There's one about scary situations which is actually referring to family violence. There's one about grief and loss. There's soon going to be one about, when your parent has a mental illness, and we're looking at ones about transition to school and parental separation.

So where people have got an idea about, and oh, feelings. We are doing one about just feelings in general. So where people have got ideas about, I'd love to recommend this book for one of those lists, we're very open to that, because we just put them on the website and share them with everybody.

Paola Mercado

That's great. That in turn goes about back to the very beginning of you know, what elements that need to be considered. It's the selecting of the story. So, Sharleen, I love your idea of collecting your bank of stories that you can choose, pick and choose from, and then adapt them as needed, or use them as needed. So that's really fantastic.

I'm just conscious of time, and I know that we still have quite a few other things to discuss. But, Andrea, you talked about on that extending of the storytelling, and ways, practical ways in which that can be done. Dramatic ways, expressive ways, so children creating their own stories, possibly, or their own at work or their own pictures. Movement and music is always a popular option as well. What are key concepts that can be thought about for those?

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Can I just take a second to address Carol's question, because somebody else is asking it as well. So what Carol has said, is I'm not sure I'm getting the difference between therapeutic storytelling and normal storytelling or usual storytelling.

That's an excellent point, because usually you are building up children's resilience and self-esteem and self-efficacy, and so on. I guess where therapeutic storytelling is different is where there is a specific, challenging experience or emotionally, potentially, emotionally damaging or traumatising or distressing experience that you're trying to address through the storytelling methodology or approach.

So I probably chose a fairly simple one by talking about storms. But actually, you know, sometimes in some communities, particularly with us, with natural disasters, where the community has been really disrupted, where the Child Care centre has been closed, for example, and or damaged, where there's a lot of disruption to children's families, financial hardship pressures. So that's what we tend to see in the natural disaster space. But there are other things that can happen. Like community trauma. There can be things that are not affecting the whole child care centre, but they are affecting a particular child, and you are the one who is in a position to be able to support them through therapeutic storytelling.

So I guess that we're so talking about resilience, building and agency and emotions in general, when we're talking about therapeutic storytelling, we are thinking about some specific emotional need. And does that make it a bit clearer? Does that make more sense?

Sharleen Keleher

I was just going to add that the process is helping the child process that emotional experience. So it's that engagement with the story and the things that you do around that are therapeutic for, and building that therapeutic environment for the child as they're working through that challenging thing.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Now, as an example, to go back to Paola's question. So music and movement, for example, we know that there's a lot of therapeutic benefits when a child is stressed or dysregulated or upset about something that's happened that they're having trouble processing, to actually go to that at the body level.

So especially for pre-verbal children or children whose language is developing, words might not be what's going to be the most helpful straight up. So the words might help, the words of the story might be helpful, but actually moving with your body, breathing, doing things that relax you, acting out the story with your body, running around, music, dancing to music, or recreating things like the storm through using musical instruments. All of these things can help to overcome that numbing that can happen with trauma, you can get numbing, spacing out, withdrawing or flattening of affect, tension and anxiety, not being able to relax, and that often reflects in children not being able to rest and sleep. It can interfere with their relationships with other kids, because they're kind of all-around in their head, and they can't get grounded, and they can't get connected with people.

So yes, movement, music, occupational therapy, sorts of things like sensory tunnels and parachutes and ball games and puppets, like the puppets and toys themselves being able to hug them, all of those can be aspects, but they're all building on the story, so they're not just things sort of isolated that you just do for the sake of doing them. If you're doing them in relation to the story, you're building a whole experience and acting things out by role-playing, dress ups. All of these are ways to approach things kind of at the body level and integrate the body, the thoughts and the feelings, or the words and the experiences and the emotions.

Paola Mercado

And all of that is so valid and just adds to the value of the storytelling, because you're feeling it. You're doing it. You're practicing it. There are countless examples of children doing the repetitive play of you know, building, building blocks and then smashing them down, because that's what they've seen in their community. Or one example that comes to mind is when the bushfires were around a few years ago, and a lot of educators were able to access the Birdie and the Bushfire book, and that was very supportive in their environment and their communities. So situations like this that you know, a little bit more intention around having to do this storytelling.

Sharleen Keleher

I just wanted to acknowledge Christine's question around, is it more appropriate to read therapeutic stories to a specific child, and being afraid this story may not be suitable to be shared with others who are not affected, and that really comes down to that situation. So as Andrea said, thinking about the hearer, thinking about the reason why you're choosing to, why you're going to use that story in a way that's going to support a child. Sometimes it will be sharing with a bigger group, because that bigger group has had that experience when we're talking about disasters. Often everyone within that community has been impacted.

There are other situations, so it might be, a child whose parent is terminally ill has been one that we've talked about quite a lot where it's specific to that child. So it might not always be a bigger group. It may be specific to one child, and you're being intentionally picking that story, and spending that time with that child to support them. There may be times where you extend out a little bit to support other children's understanding of what their friend has been going through, and we, and that will depend on the context, what's happening there.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

And much depends on that attunement as well. So we often have parents, the adult, say to us, well, should we talk about the flood or the bushfire, because won't we just be re-triggering them or re-traumatising them? Isn't it better to just draw a line under that and to kind of pretend it never happened, and move on and keep them focused on the here and now?

Well, the answer to that depends a lot on coming back to the hearer, to being attuned to the child. If the child isn't talking about that event at all, and seems perfectly happy, and they haven't changed in their personality or their behaviour at all from how they were before. They seem to just bounce through it just fine. Maybe they have, you know, we know that 80% of children are resilient so long as they've got a nurturing responsive adult in their lives and an attachment relationship that makes them feel safe. Most children do get through even very difficult situations without needing a whole lot of processing.

But if the child is not talking about it, but kind of obviously not talking about it, and they are not the same as they used to be, they're more withdrawn, they're having more temper tantrums, they’re more fragile. There's a whole range of things you can see in a child that suggests to you that actually, they do need an age-appropriate opportunity to process that experience, and that's where that storytelling can come in.

And I did want to go to that point about play too, because there's a big difference between healthy play that's processing experience and play that is a sign of trauma. So where the child is playing out the experience, but their effect is fairly calm, or they're not desperately distressed, they're playing it out, but maybe it comes to an end, maybe they change the ending, maybe they change the ending each time, maybe they're trying different things, and then they're able to leave that and get on with something else, that's probably normal processing through play. It's where we see a child who is playing in a very repetitive, fixed. stressed, or anxious way, a lot of distress, they never change the ending, they get stuck, they seem to be going round and running circles, and just stuck, and can't find an ending to that play, or can't change what happens, that's where we're worried that we're seeing a sign of trauma in their play, and where we might want to intervene.

Paola Mercado

But they are great distinctions right there, and also it's just such a perfect segue to our next section, and I'm just thinking of the clock here, because I've got a couple of more things that I want to highlight. But we often talk about the disaster, recovery, timeline, and addressing these things along that timeline, and we know that recovery really doesn't have an endpoint. But thinking about the preparedness and the immediate instances of when these traumas occur, short term and long term. It's on the screen there, now that I see it.

During those times we can also be providing these storybooks with these storytelling experiences, and we really feel that this won't necessarily have long-term effects, it will actually support everybody in the group. You may want to think about addressing a smaller group, or an individual child, but in general, like when we're thinking about preparedness, it's also a useful point.

Sharleen Keleher

Absolutely. So I’m thinking, when we're looking at preparedness, and how we can build that through storytelling is developing social-emotional wellbeing, supporting children's developmental skills, communication. So they're able to communicate when they need something. Really developing their language around emotions as well plays an important role in preparedness and resiliency.

Sharing, I know many people shared lovely books that talk about different emotions in the chat, and building, helping the children develop their vocabulary that they can use to understand what that emotion they're feeling in their body is, and communicate that to others plays an important role.

Then, when we're thinking about what this looks like in that immediate time around a disruptive event, we can actually use sharing stories as part of helping children feel safe and feel calm and understand what's happening. So if there is a time where you need to shelter in place, even. Actually I've seen a lovely example in a community that was impacted by floods last year quite significantly, and they had, were spending some time doing their storm drills, preparing so the children know what'll happen if a storm comes, and recognise that the children might find these experiences quite upsetting, quite disruptive to them. So the educators were really really intentional in how they supported, they knew the drill was coming up, how they were supporting the children, to sit in a quiet space in the room during the drill, and shared a story, and it was actually Birdie and the Storm, there was a lot of conversation around storms at that time to help them understand what was happening, and that helped the children feel calm, be able to stay quiet, which was something that they needed to do as part of the drill and stay in one place, and it helps them also to process and communicate their emotions that they were experiencing. Some of them did feel a little bit scared. Most felt really excited, because it was different, and it was just something, it was a drill, it wasn't the real thing happening.

And then I just wanted to mention about that recovery. So on the screen we've got that short-term and long-term recovery process, and we think about all these different challenges that can come up in these times. So there will be reminders of that challenging event that occurred, and bringing together the child and the adult through storytelling and story sharing, to talk about those kinds of things. It helps the adults tune into what the children's experiences are. There's many, many, many examples I've heard of children sharing things, insights, observations that they had of the floods, the fires, etc., that the adults actually hadn't heard from the children until they were in that, they were sharing what Birdie and Mr. Frog did, or they were sharing stories that they had collated together. And it was a really lovely way to bring people together to talk about it and to problem solve as well, and come to that sense of feeling supported and prepared for if something like that happens again.

Paola Mercado

That's a great point Sharleen, and I can see a lot of it coming from the educator thinking about the wellbeing of the children that are in this space, and how they're supporting not only the children and the families, but, what can educators think about when it comes to their own wellbeing in this space, and how they did, and being attuned to, I guess, to their own processes, because we find that in communities who, as your example before, who are affected and impacted by a flood, it's also the educators who live in that community and are experiencing these traumas for themselves. So what can we think about there?

Sharleen Keleher

I think I'm going, I was looking to see if it Andrea had something. So when we're thinking about that, as you said particularly, these bigger things that happen within a community, we're all impacted in different ways. So, being aware that you have some emotional reactions that this process can actually help with, you sitting with yourself, recognising the emotions that you're experiencing, and recognising the needs that you have to support yourself.

So tuning into the times where you're feeling really quite dysregulated yourself, and needing some time out, to going, "Okay well, right now, I just feel like I can't possibly sit and do this particular thing that we'd planned. So instead, I'm going to do something different, so I can get out and move my body". Or maybe we need some quiet time, so making intentional choices to create environments that provide that quiet time. Also talking with each other, talking with your colleagues, offering support, letting them know when you need support as well, and all coming together to support each other.

And I think something that has been really really topical in this area for so long is around that idea of burnout, and that we've all been through quite a challenging time over the last 3 years. Almost every time I have a conversation with an educator, there's always a recognition of, this has been a tough few years, and things are like, yes, they're getting back to normal, but we're a bit tired. Or we're a lot tired. So recognising that, giving yourself some grace, and setting up those ways that you can look after yourself, so you're able to look after the children effectively.

Dr Andrea Baldwin

I will jump in. I'm a country person by background, and I think maybe this is even more common in rural and remote areas than in the city. But, it not being okay to not be okay. So people are like, I don't want anyone to know that I'm struggling. It will make me look unprofessional or weak, or you know, I can't have people thinking that I can't cope, because then I can't hold my family together, or make things work.

And I'd really love to see us develop a culture, and hopefully we're doing this by starting with early childhood, where people are able to say, you know a lot of the time I cope really well, and I'm coping really well right now, but I'm going through a particularly difficult time, and I'm struggling in some ways, and I'm feeling these feelings, and I would like these kinds of help and support, for that to be okay and not to be judged. Because we all need a helping hand from time to time. It's that pretty little picture there in that says, and we all need to lean on each other at different times, and sometimes one person has got lots of resourcefulness and strength and energy, and they can lend it to somebody else, and it's reciprocal. It goes around and comes around.

So I would love us to develop a culture where we can talk about feelings and emotional needs, and how we can help each other without that being anything out of the ordinary at all. And as Sharleen says, it's a little bit of a silver lining from COVID is that everybody is becoming more aware of the wear and tear of hard times on people, on our emotions and our energy and our creativity, and our ability to put one foot in front of the other, and we do need to help each other out. That's just how it is. It's just life. It's okay.

Paola Mercado

Yes, absolutely. And it brings me back to your one of your very original comments at the very beginning, where, sometimes we don't need to have the answer, but we just need to be. And again, it just highlights that for me, very very much.

We're coming towards the end of our Webinar. Very, very quickly, that goes too quickly than I'd like to admit. But before we go, we'd just like to mention to everybody that if you do want to continue unpacking the content that we've had a look at through the Webinar today, we have the therapeutic storytelling module on the Be You website that you can access. There are also other resources sitting on our website, and things like educator wellbeing that you may want to have a think about and have a look at.

But also, you are invited to stay for another little bit after this session, after this Webinar, to join in our conversation, where we will unpack hopefully another couple of practical strategies. We have a couple of questions for Sally and for Sharleen and Andrea, and any questions that you may think to ask at the moment that we can take into our conversation space. That would be great.

And a reminder that attendees will receive an automated email in approximately 2 days containing the recording of the Webinar, as well as all the links to the downloadable handouts as well, and your certificate of attendance. Please don't forget to complete the survey that comes within that email as well, and when you exit you will actually be directed to the Spotlight, that if you can't stay on for the next Q&A section with us, there is a Be You spotlight session happening next Thursday at 1:30 PM, Australian Eastern Daylight Savings time, and it is to continue talking about using therapeutic storytelling to support children through challenging times.

So at this point I'd like to very quickly ask Andrea and Sharleen, and put you on the spot, if you've got one key takeaway message for educators joining us today, what would that be?

Dr Andrea Baldwin

Give therapeutic storytelling a go. So I think most people do do storytelling, don't be afraid of extending your normal skills and practices to help to support children in particularly stressful or potentially traumatic situations. You won't do harm. I'm very sure that with your skills as an educator, you won't do harm, and you will do good, and the more you do it and practice it and learn about it, the more good you will do.

Paola Mercado

Thanks, Andrea. Sharleen. Have you got something quick for us?

Sharleen Keleher

I think that almost covered what I was going to say. I think one of the things I always say is you are not expected to be a clinician. You are an educator who is an important person in the child's life, and your relationship and the interactions that you have with the children is what supports them. So, as Andrea said, don't shy away from it. You're going to be making choices that support a child, and just being really intentional about how you do that, and reflecting on it, and also enjoying the process as well.

Paola Mercado

Fantastic. Thank you so much. This concludes our Webinar for today. If you can join us online in a little bit we will stay online and you can join our conversation. If you have to go, we do appreciate you attending today, and we shall see you next time.

Thank you.

End of transcript