We just finished conducting a workshop at the University of Colorado with the International Association of Forensic Nurses. Known worldwide for its focus on caring and reflective practice, Sue Hagedorn and Vicki Erickson from the University, in conjunction with recruitment from IAFN, brought together nurses from around the country for the workshops. The workshops were facilitated by Daniel Weinshenker and Mary Ann McNair from the Center for Digital Storytelling. This was the third workshop in a three-part series to be run at the University of Colorado Anschutz Center. Future workshops will focus on interdisciplinary stories (nurses and doctors, doctors and patients). This project focused on how certain patients affected the storyteller’s identity as a nurse, or changed their practice, and sometimes how experiences from their life outside of nursing affected the way they think about caring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In January, 2010, we went up to Edwards, CO for the second time to work with The Youth Foundation and the Guardian Scholars program to help former foster youth and children of undocumented migrant workers tell and share their stories. The Youth Foundation provides and supports programs that serve economically disadvantaged youth from pre-school through college. The common theme in all of the Youth Foundation’s efforts is jumping in to not only keep kids from “falling through the cracks,” but lift them up through education, sports and opportunities that promote character development…like digital storytelling. Some of the youth they work with receive full ride scholarships to go to college from the Guardian Scholars program. These are the people we had the chance to spend the weekend with.

Here are their stories.

The result was a packed house at The Bug Theater on Dec 16th for a screening of all the stories and a discussion afterward with all the storytellers. We have DVDs of the stories available for purchase, the proceeds going to the creation of a discussion guide to go with the stories. If interested, please contact Daniel Weinshenker (daniel at milehighstories dot com).

You can watch the stories here
Click on Immigration Stories on the right hand side.

KGNU Denver/Boulder also ran a story on the project today (Dec 16th) on Morning Magazine.
Listen to the story
here.

They’ll have Pam Free on Morning Edition at about 6:30 and 8:30; Lori Griffing on Colorado Matters, at about 10:25 and again on the evening  show at 7:25 and then Lisa Germany on All Things Considered at 5:30.

Listen up!!!

PS – If you want to watch the full digital stories with video, you can do so here.

PPS – Or you can listen to how they sounded on CPR here:

Lisa Germany

Lori Griffing

Pam Free

This workshop was funded by Retirement Living TV and was the second workshop in a series of workshops of this kind. The first workshop was led by students from UMBC (Univ of Maryland Baltimore County) in a service learning initiative where new media students went into a local retirement community to work with seniors.  Those stories won a Telly Award and can be found here.

Digital storytelling was profiled in the Denver Post this weekend.

Although it’s just a snippet, we appreciate the exposure.

Bring on the New York Times, if it’s still around….

In November we conducted a workshop at the Mizel Museum in Denver for their current exhibit entitled Stories of Resilience.  It was a unique workshop in that we actually worked with 20 participants (ten storytellers and ten helpers, most of whom had never taken our workshop before).  The multi-generational dialogue to the workshop lent it a different flavor and helped to form a cohesive community of story sharing.

There were two holocaust survivors in the group, a rabbi talking about life post stroke, an activist and a survivor of rape, among other participants with powerful stories to tell and share.

Stories of Resilience was shaped by the knowledge that each of us have participated in life-altering experiences. The 3-day workshop at the Mizel Museum was conceived as part of an exploration and interpretation of resilience from the perspective of the storyteller. At different points on life’s journey, we have faced decisions and choices that shifted values, self-perceptions, world view, attitudes, and actions. Framed within the context of resilience, the workshop focuses on the life-changing events to create a narration of how those perceptions were altered in the participant’s lives.

The Mizel Museum believes the process of digital storytelling will become an integral, and captivating permanent addition to their exhibit space.

The stories can be viewed (one per month) here
or in a series at the museum.

Click on the page link to the right, or right here.

The stories can also be viewed, of course, at the History Museum downtown and include short interviews with the storytellers.  The audio from these stories will be broadcast on Colorado Public Radio as part of their Colorado Matters program soon

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In February of 2007, the Mile High Stories team worked in conjunction with The Center for Digital Storytelling (storycenter.org) and the Colorado Historical Society to capture several stories of members of the Italian American community. These stories are currently being presented at the Colorado History Museum as part of The Italians of Denver exhibit.

Special thanks to:
Daniel Weinshenker, Center for Digital Storytelling
Mary Ann McNair, Colorado Historical Society
Joshua Hassel, Producer/Director, KBDI Channel 12
Brad Johnson, Camera/Editing