Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Last year, the Hogg foundation developed a Lived Experience Storytelling Primer, a toolkit designed to help people share their stories in ways that are both impactful and sustainable.
To talk about how that toolkit was created and how it's being used in real world advocacy, I'm joined by Maddie Garza of the Hogg foundation, our policy fellow who played a lead role in the Storytelling Telling Primer.
And in his second visit to our studio, Ayaan Moladina of seat, which stands for Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, who's been using it out in the field. Maddy Ion, thank you so much for being with us today.
[00:00:49] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:00:49] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:51] Speaker A: So my first question is for Maddie.
What gap were you trying to fill with the Lived Experience Storytelling Primer? Maybe you can give our listeners just a little bit of background about how it is that we would become interested in both lived experience and storytelling from an advocacy standpoint.
And just what do folks see that made this resource necessary?
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, no, that's great. A great question and really vital way to start talking about this resource and understanding the history behind it. So in the policy space, organizations and advocacy groups have an agenda. They have specific things that they'd like to see lawmakers do and laws they'd like to see them pass. And in some situations, it would be really useful for those groups to have someone who has lived experience with the issue come and speak in front of these lawmakers, because at the end of the, at the end of the day, they're the ones that are closest to the issue. And those stories might be more moving than a statistic of how many people are in these institutions, how many people experience these programs. So with good intentions, these organizations and advocacy groups ask people to come speak in front of lawmakers. But unfortunately, there have been times where these people who were invited weren't prepared adequate, adequately with the emotional and psychological support needed to really dive into personal issues and such a vulnerable and intense setting. So that's kind of where this project really came into inception. It was the Hogg foundation in partnership with Recovery People, which is a organization who does work to uplift the voices of people who have lived experience of mental health and substance use challenges in their journey towards recovery. So the resource was really developed to bridge that gap, like you said, between people who were invited to come speak at the Capitol, but ensuring that they had at least beginning stages towards adequate resources and preparation to share their story in front of lawmakers. Because, you know, sitting in front of that mic, staring up at the dais in front of these Powerful decision makers can be extremely intimidating and sometimes invalidating. You know, and we're asking people to have vulnerability when unfortunately, I've seen with my own eyes that vulnerability without direction and without, you know, concrete steps or suggestions for solutions doesn't go as far with these lawmakers. I've seen them, you know, their body language will shift or their eyes will glaze over when people start to cry or get overly emotional. So I think that it's really helpful, not that emotions are bad, but to ensure that, that the emotion, the vulnerability, the lived experience is coupled with a clear direction and a mess of hope for what they would like to see come out of the discussion. And so, yeah, that's really where this primer, this idea for a lived experience storytelling toolkit came about.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Okay, wonderful. And so, Ayaan, I introduced you to this resource when we were recording episode 185. Yeah.
And so you've actually taken this toolkit into the field and put it to some use.
So what was your first reaction when you saw it and how have you been incorporating it in your work with seat?
[00:04:39] Speaker C: This is definitely a resource that was much needed. We work with students all the time and we always say that stories are what change hearts and minds of lawmakers, of individuals. Anybody who you want to be on your side, that is what you need to share.
Data points and facts are always important and you should be well versed in those as well.
But Mattie alluded to this as well, of what truly is going to help push it across the finish line, push those statements and those asks across the finish line, is lived experience.
And a lot of times, like Maddy said, those folks who go in, and particularly students, but really folks of all ages who have their lived experiences ready, obviously, because they know what happened to them, they know what got them into this, but they don't know how to craft it into something concise that they can share in front of a legislative committee or some sort of legislative body. And they also don't know a lot of times how to quite tie it back to the ask that they are pushing forward. And so if it's something about a bill or if it's something about a policy that's being proposed, it's really important that you tie your lived experience back to that. But a lot of times that can be a challenge even for me. A lot of times when I'm thinking about my story and I go in a bunch of different directions about, oh, and then this happened and I started feeling this way and then this went wrong and, and that's all really important to share, but it needs to all be cohesive and tie back together.
And so this primer really helped with that because we were able to share it with students at our advocacy day, which we recently held, which had over 100 students in the Dallas Fort Worth area join us from across the state. And we met with them and gave them the opportunity to look at the primer and understand how this can be a resource that they use in the upcoming legislative session.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: And.
[00:06:40] Speaker C: And even when they go testify before city council in front of their school boards, how this is something that they can use to identify what points of their story tie back to the ask that they're making and how they can then use that in a way to positively impact the issue in front of them. And so it has to have a lot of those different components. It has to have the struggle that you have gone through. It has to have a little bit of how that ties back to the policy issue, why it's important. And then it has to have that clear, concise ask and a little bit of hope, like Matti said.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Okay, so, Matti, do you have any questions for ion?
Just as someone who I'm sure is wanting this as a good case study for. For the use of this.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Sure. I mean, I'm just curious if there was anyone or any anecdotes you have of stories that you've seen, people that you've, you know, other youth or people who are your peers, you've worked alongside, be able to convey in a way that was really rooted in lived experience, but also helped push forward and ask, you know, like you were mentioning.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, there are very few issues, I would say a handful of issues that I think most people in our generation can relate to that everybody has an experience in. And I think one of the top issues on that list is mental health, because there is everyone in our generation has either experienced it themselves or is friends with someone who is experiencing it, has a family member who is experiencing mental health struggles. And so this is something that I have seen, has been the starting point for why students get involved in advocacy in the first place. That's why I got involved, because I was diagnosed with clinical depression and ocd. And that's why I wanted to get involved in advocacy in the policy making space. And now when I get to work with students all across the country, I get to see that as well, that this is one of the main issues that drives students getting involved.
And so I hear all the time that, you know, we've been through A lot. Whether it's suicidal ideation, whether it's losing a friend to suicide, whether it's struggling themselves, whether it's just being in that hole of depression.
I've seen students be kicked out of school because of their mental health struggles and the schools not being able to support them, all of these different stories. And they want to get involved and they want to be able to advocate to make sure that that doesn't happen to any other child. But they don't know how to do that.
And so it has to be a combination of a bunch of different measures. And so I think one is having our organization seat be there to be a resource, be a community for them and allow them to be with peers who have experience in this and can help support them through it, but then also have a resource like the primer so that it can go in tandem with the community that they're now a part of and give them that extra boost to help them do that. And so I've had students, particularly like recently I mentioned at our advocacy day, who we showed them the primer and they took notes about, you know, first of all, we had them write out a full paragraph, a full page about their story, whatever it may be, as long as you want it to be, whatever details you want to include in it. Literally just brain dump, whatever is in your mind.
And they did that. And then we looked at the primer and we said, okay, based on some of the things that it tells you here, what are some things we can pull out of the story and say, this is something that relates to the topic we're advocating for right now. So if we're talking about mental health stigma in schools and you have this full essay about your mental health story, maybe we pull out a piece about the school counselor not supporting you enough. Maybe we pull out a piece about the teacher being weary of even talking about mental health. Maybe we pull out a piece about the students around you not quite understanding what you're going through and all of that contributing to mental health stigma. It's not to say that the rest of the story isn't important and we can still tie it into that. Well, we have to pick out the pieces that line up directly with that ask. And having the primer there was really helpful. And so we saw students who were so much more confident than when they began. Because a lot of times, like I mentioned, you have this jumble of story and you're trying to remember what happened to you and all of these different traumatic things that you've been through. And all of the sudden you feel more confident in your experiences. You know what you've been through and you know how to channel that into something to help other people.
And we've had lawmakers tell us that the only reason that they support specific pieces of legislation is because students came forward and shared their lived experiences. So we want these students to continue being able to do that so that we continue to be able to make change.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah. Something you said too, if I may.
That I think is. It made me think about. I think a really strong guiding question when we're talking to people about storytelling in the advocacy space is the question of what makes you the most important person to speak on this issue. And I think, yeah, that kind of comes back into if the issue is mental health stigma, focusing then in on not the negative experiences of your mental health challenges, but what did you face that reinforces this idea that mental health stigma is alive and it's hurting people and it's negative, it's not helpful. And so, yeah, pulling out those pieces that have to do with how people reacted to them or the different challenges that they face that reinforce this idea and that's what makes them so important and such a prominent voice. Why are you the person to talk about this issue? I think is always a really good grounding question in coming up with this script of really kind of making sure that your lived experience story is something that is impactful but can also fit in a two minute time. Period. Period. Yeah, right.
[00:13:10] Speaker C: Because a lot of times folks think that they're unqualified to speak about these things. I mean, you have these bills that are put forward before these legislative bodies that are hundreds of pages long that have all the legalese that students and frankly people of all ages really don't understand.
And we have to tell them, no, you are equipped because this is about you, this is about your well being and they want to hear your story and how it's going to affect you. Because I've heard this so much over the past few years. Nothing about us, without us. Right. This is not about us just wanting to be represented just because this is about. Because this is going to affect us and it already is.
And you can craft these policies, but you will be able to craft better policies and more effective policies if you hear from the people that it's actually going to affect.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: Right.
And something else I've really learned through my time as a policy fellow is you never know who up there on the dais has a nephew or a sister or whose chief of staff has a mom who's a school counselor. You never know. And so making sure or. Yeah, that's really kind of speaks to this power of storytelling, is that you can bring this larger societal issue to a much more personal.
Personal and relatable thing that you just. Yeah, you can't discount. You can't discount anyone from having some way to connect with what you're saying and what you've experienced.
[00:14:41] Speaker C: It always builds that human connection because this transcends all sorts of boundaries and identities. It transcends political ideology. It transcends race, gender, ethnicity, whatever it may be. This is something that affects everyone. I've testified before committees about my experiences with my mental health struggles, and audience members will come up to me in tears saying that, you know, I have a grandson who I'm gonna go get help for now because I have a better understanding of what he's going through. And then I have lawmakers come forward and saying that really hit home with my personal experiences as well. I struggled a lot as a kid. And even folks you disagree with, even folks you don't even know, this is a way to build that human connection which our society is lacking a lot of right now.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: If you're interested in exploring the lived experience storytelling primer, we'll include a link in the show notes.
Thank you to Maddie Garza and Ayaan Molydena for sharing their insights. We really do appreciate it.
[00:15:45] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: Thank you, Sam.
