Influencing Perceptions Through Storytelling: Reframing Interactions With Foster Care

Storytelling Is The Heart Of Advocacy

Storytelling is a fundamental part of our identities. It is how families and cultures carry forward their history and traditions for each generation to embrace. In West Africa, the griot continues to influence how tribes and villages remember their history. In the indigenous tribes of the Americas, stories are used to orient children to the customs and practices and origins of their people. In this way, stories hold an intrinsic value to the preservation of a people.

However, in the foster care system, youth are not given the opportunity to hear stories of their ancestors. Since they are separated from their biological parents, there aren’t customs and traditions to use as an anchor. Instead, youth embrace societal narratives that are written about them that typically lean into the struggles and victimization of their experience. This is perhaps one of the most abnormal parts of their childhood. Without stories to orient these children to their identity, many self-identify with these negative stories and go on to believe they are unloved and have no worth. It is for this reason there is often great shame associated with a lived foster care experience. As a result, adults who have had a foster care experience rarely share their stories. The authors believe that by keeping these journey’s private, future generations of youth in care are robbed of counter narratives that highlight the resilience, perseverance and power these youth possess.

Before we dig deeper into the power of story, it's important to know how the negative perceptions of youth in foster care began.