Equitable Storytelling — Best Practices from the Dec. 3 Workshop

By Catherine Hinrichsen, project director, Seattle University’s Project on Family Homelessness

Communications work that is strengths- and values-based — in which racial equity is prioritized — was the theme of the recent “Equitable Storytelling” workshop, Tuesday, Dec. 3 at Seattle University. Our project co-hosted the workshop with ComNetworkSEATTLE.

About 70 communications professionals, mostly from human services and social justice organizations, attended. It was the largest workshop of this type we’ve ever held, and perhaps the largest ComNetworkSEATTLE meeting ever — a testament not only to the importance of partnering, but to the deep interest in this topic.

Fortunately for all of us, the three speakers were incredibly generous in sharing their knowledge, some of which I will attempt to impart here as time allows.

First, an introduction to the three terrific speakers, all professionals whose commitment to equitable storytelling is baked into their organizational values:

• Eric Bronson, Digital Advocacy & Engagement Manager, YWCA Seattle King Snohomish
• Erin Murphy, Communications Specialist, King County Department of Public Health/Best Starts for Kids
• Vy Tran, Prenatal to Five Workforce Development Lead, Best Starts for Kids Initiative, King County Developmental Disabilities and Early Childhood Supports Division

Erin, Eric and Vy shared strategies to:

• Champion the power of the storyteller and accommodate their needs.
• Adapt to the challenges of the review and approval processes.
• Protect the privacy of storytellers, while presenting a compelling human connection.
• Recognize the importance of equitable *visual* communications.

A recurring theme: the emphasis on strength-based communications, which you also may have heard described as “asset framing” or “aspirational communication” — more on that below, at the end. These are becoming crucial frameworks for communications professionals.

Values as “North Star”

At Best Starts for Kids, Erin Murphy explained, there is agency-wide agreement on their values: equity, transparency, relationships and community-oriented. These values, built in from the initiative’s beginnings, are the “North Star” for communications decisions.

She pointed out that it’s important to consider not only who you represent, but how. As part of King County government, she’s frequently taking photos of County Executive Dow Constantine in the community. The typical communications person impulse (or pressure) is to focus on the boss, but at Best Starts, the community relationships take priority.

As an example, Erin showed this photo of the County Executive meeting with community partners. She had shot the photo from over his shoulder because the partner relationship is the key element of this scene.

Erin shared the Best Starts values and equity statements by asking for help reading them out loud. Here, filmmaker Jordan Iverson reads one of the statements.

“The Story Belongs to the Storyteller”

Eric Bronson then shared principles of ethical storytelling, and said “there is no ethical storytelling without equitable storytelling.” Eric had written about this last year in “The Ethics of Storytelling: A How-To Guide.” Among his advice is tips for ensuring you are making accommodations that enable more people to be included in storytelling, such as providing help with transportation, childcare and scheduling, as well as an often overlooked element: food.

The 60 Minutes story on homelessness had aired only two days before, and Eric used that as a case study in how *not* to do equitable storytelling. He noted two major flaws: first, that the story ignored that people of color disproportionately experience homelessness, and second, that the producers only interviewed white people — among all the providers, officials, researchers and people experiencing homelessness they talked to.

Eric said that periodically YWCA does a Racial Equity Blog Audit to make sure they’re meeting their goals for who is being represented, and how.

“Positive, warm, relational…”

Vy Tran showed us how Best Starts incorporates the values of positive, warm, relational and genuine into its work, not only by exemplifying those qualities as a speaker but by walking us through some exercises. Vy had hidden some index cards around the room, with sample phrases that that are commonly used to describe people and situations in social services.

Which of these would you use? Vy’s slides give insights on the impact of words we commonly use.

Before I go, here’s what you came here for: The speakers were kind enough to share their presentation slides.

In addition, here are the handouts you might have missed, and a couple bonus items.

Handouts

• Strength over Trauma Worksheet
• Best Starts Writing Style Guide
• BSK Guide to Equitable Storytelling
• BSK Guide to Photography and Visual Communications

Bonus Materials:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2020, “Aspirational Communication,” by Doug Hattaway of Hattaway Communications (and The Communications Network leader)
• ComNet19 keynote on Asset Framing by Trabian Shorters, founder of BMe Community

Thank you to our fantastic speakers, to ComNetworkSEATTLE — especially Kara Palmer of Pyramid Communications — for partnering with us, and to all the people who came to our workshop!