CFP: Storytelling for Health Conference

AMBU Health Board is holding its very first Storytelling for Health conference. This major international conference will bring together arts practitioners, health practitioners and researchers in order to see storytelling for health in practice and to explore the benefits and impact of storytelling for health.  Confirmed keynote speakers include Daniel Morden and Prof Mike Wilson.

Daniel Morden is one of the UKs leading storytellers, he has been enchanting audiences with his tales since 1989. He has performed at events across the globe, has won numerous awards including the Audience Choice Award for Outstanding Storyteller- Words Festival, Helsingbor, Denmark and the UK Classical Association Award for ‘the most significant contribution to the public understanding of the classics’, and has published 12 collections of stories.  Daniel’s recent work has focussed on the performance of stories when going through a major health event.

Prof Mike Wilson is Professor of Drama at Loughborough University.  He is a leading authority on storytelling and performance and has written seven major books on the subject.  Mike’s research on storytelling has led him to work on the interface between storytelling and digital technology and the way in which the internet has enabled the telling and sharing of ‘extraordinary’ stories of the everyday experiences of people.  He is a Co-Investigator on the major RCUK projects: ‘Creative Practice as Mutual Recovery’, a collaboration led by the Institute of Mental Health at the University of Nottingham, exploring the value of creative interventions as a tool for mutual recovery in the field of Mental Health.

The conference is presented by ABMU Health Board in collaboration with The George Ewart Centre for Storytelling at the University of South Wales, The University of Wales Trinity St Davids, Swansea University, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, The National Waterfront Museum and Volcano Theatre.

Call for Contributions
Our aims are to acknowledge and celebrate the importance and growth of storytelling for health and to understand and promote good practice.  To this end we are seeking contributions within the following three conference strands:
Sharing good practice
Sharing and building the evidence
Embedding storytelling in health & sustainability

Areas addressed may include, but are not limited to:
Mental Health
Emotional Health
Physical Health

We are keen to embrace storytelling in the widest possible sense and through a range of art forms, including but not limited to:
Written word
Fine art
Spoken word
Digital
Performance
Music
Movement
Organisational storytelling
medical humanities
Narrative medicine
Biopsychosocial approaches to health
Interdisciplinary approaches

We would be delighted to hear about projects which facilitate communication and build shared language across different cultures (eg: patients and clinicians, artists and commissioners), projects which embed storytelling in training of health professionals, projects which have influenced policy, examples of project evaluations, examples of methodologies or projects which utilise different methodological approaches, case studies from any stage of the life of a project from origination to completion, inter-disciplinary evidence, and explorations of gaps in the existing research.

Contributions may take the form of papers, talks, performances, presentations, films or workshops.  We are seeking contributions that are innovative in their means of presentation and also welcome contributions in other formats.  Please specify the format of your presentation in your abstract and include details of your anticipated running time and technical requirements.

Please send abstracts of not more than 300 words to Prue Thimbleby prue.thimbleby@wales.nhs.uk by Monday 3rd November 2016

You should state clearly which of the three strands you would like your proposal to be considered for and should include details of anticipated running times and all technical requirements.