Using Digital Storytelling to Meaningfully Engage and Share Complex Lived Experiences

Abstract Information: Digital storytelling has the potential to meaningfully engage participants, share often complex lived experiences in a compelling way, and provides benefits to the participant beyond that of just sharing their experiences in order to contribute to societal or program improvements. The current evaluation was tasked with implementing and assessing a capacity-building initiative aimed at supporting more integrated and family-centered care coordination services in New Hampshire. Care coordination was defined broadly, and included parents with substance use disorder in need of services, parents of young children with behavioral health needs, and caregivers of young children with medically complex or chronic conditions. Evaluators chose to use digital storytelling to meaningfully engage and center the family voice in order to provide direction for the development of training and CQI activities. Trained storytelling facilitators led the workshops and two evaluators completed a multimodal analysis of both the audio and visual portions of the stories. This presentation will share successes and challenges in using this arts-based, participatory approach as a qualitative data collection method. Unique aspects of this data collection method will be discussed, including ethical considerations, recruitment of sites and participants, and data analysis methods.

Relevance Statement: Qualitative data is essential in evaluations. Yet, we continue to turn to conventional methods such as focus groups and interviews, which have the potential to create power hierarchies, continue to burden those most marginalized and vulnerable, and often interpret data from dominant viewpoints. This can lead to respondent distress and disengagement in research. Many evaluators have turned to community-based participatory research (CBPR) methods and the equitable evaluation framework (EEF) as guides in our work to ensure that we are minimizing harm and moving towards the practice of evaluation in the service of equity. Digital storytelling is a method that is particularly aligned with the EEF (www.equitableeval.org) and has great potential as a qualitative data collection method. While there has been some more recent research, digital storytelling is still largely unknown and unstudied as a qualitative data collection method. The proposed presentation will provide a detailed example of utilizing digital storytelling for qualitative data collection with the intention of meaningfully engaging and centering community voice. We will emphasize successes, challenges, and lessons learned throughout the project, including the IRB process, recruitment of sites and participants, facilitation of storytelling workshops, data analysis, and dissemination of results. Those attending this session will gain insight for utilizing this method in their own evaluation practice and have time for discussion of the potential of digital storytelling as a useful and equitable qualitative data collection method.