Using story-telling to heal trauma

One of the great privileges of working in communications is developing the voice of your organisation. A voice is more than just language. When fully expressed, it is the composite personality, values set and ambition of an organisation.

As comms people, we channel voice like spirit mediums, composing our tweets with ouija-like dedication. Voice is expressed in a thousand little ways (that’s why you should be gracious if your marketing lead initiates a discussion about the ‘most appropriate emoji’ or the ‘best shade of blue’). These things matter — collectively they signal who you are, what you believe and why you are worthwhile.

Trauma on the frontline

I work in the health sector. Watching the pandemic unfold from a front row seat has deepened my admiration for my colleagues. However, the toll on them has been great. This intense period of concentration, effort and emotion has been traumatic.

We mustn’t ignore this. Our organisations contain traumatised people.

But healthcare doesn’t stop, there has been no rest period. In fact just the opposite – a push from the centre to sustain activity, do more, a refocusing on metrics and waiting times and budgets. It’s not wrong — it’s modern healthcare — but it does mean that we have to be deliberate with the support we offer to the traumatised people in our organisations.

In our Trust, we are investing into the provision of talking therapy and a host of other initiatives and these therapeutic and wellbeing focussed interventions are necessary and important. But there’s a role for story telling in the healing process too…

You are the hero of our story

While organisational voice is important for defining external perception, it can also shape how we see ourselves. In our organisation we are using stories in our authentic voice to help people recognise that their contribution during the pandemic was significant. That their contribution mattered.

We are telling our people that in our story – they are the heroes.

There are a million ways to tell a story. Like any good story-teller, we began with the narrative arc. In our case our hospital transformed from an elective site into a trauma centre, treating some of the most vulnerable people in the city — it’s emotive stuff! We then found creative ways to tell our story.

We told our story in pictures, namely a photographic exhibition called ‘Behind the mask’ which is ostensibly for patients and visitors but also provides a very visual cue to staff that they important and recognised. We also told our story in an installation called ‘Our COVID stories’ which is both an exhibition our people can walk around, a digital repository and available in booklet form – so people can take their story home.

Weaving together the tapestry

‘Our COVID stories’ shares the experiences of staff from a number of perspectives — and that is vital. Throughout the pandemic, people had very different experiences. Our aim was to legitimise all stories as valid and important and help individuals see their own experience as one thread in a broader tapestry.

The role of the communicator is to tell this story and keep telling it in an authentic voice, until is wriggles its way into the consciousness of the organisation.

I’m under no illusion that a story in and of itself is enough for traumatised people, but it can be a profound way to help people understand that they have great value and that their work matters. It can be a banner to march beneath. It can provide purpose, a full stop, a way to contextualise trauma and support healing.

By sharing stories with authenticity and shaping our own narrative we recognise contribution and we acknowledge sacrifice. We begin to heal. We move forward together.