Georgian students help bring untold stories to life

Aug. 21, 2018

Residents of a long-term care facility in Barrie have been reliving and sharing personal experiences with students in Georgian’s Occupational Therapist Assistant and Physiotherapist Assistant program as part of a digital storytelling project.

Each week over the course of the summer semester, first-year students Mija Seo, Erin Yoo, Maryna Zhykina and Nicole Zylstra worked with residents to reflect on, write, record, produce and celebrate their life stories.

The goal of the project was to promote a healthy brain and impact the residents’ current lived experience through social interaction, connectedness and creativity.

“Digital storytelling is an innovative technique that can help support individuals with cognitive, communication and technology differences,” says occupational therapist and Georgian instructor Paula Cappadocia. “The residents involved found joy and satisfaction seeing their stories come to life. For the students, it was an opportunity to learn the value of self-expression and strategies to overcome memory loss and communication challenges.”

With help from Georgian’s Media Services, students produced two short videos with images, sound and music that residents can now share with their friends and family.

Zhykina had never heard of digital storytelling before and was nervous about the project. She says thanks to her instructor’s guidance and mentorship, the team rallied together to make it happen — analyzing information, debriefing, strategizing on how to ask the residents compelling questions and brainstorming how best to represent their stories.

At every step, the students included residents in the process.

“I learned that storytelling and conversation are very therapeutic,” Zhykina says. “It was a powerful and meaningful experience for us as students and for the residents. When you interact with a client and learn about them as a person, you start to see their uniqueness and appreciate their life experiences. All of that can help to build a good therapeutic relationship and enhance the delivery of treatment.”

Pictured left to right: Erin, Mija, Nicole, Maryna