Storytelling tools for Youth Workers

social emotional skills to survive. Working with stories we can train the creative centre that helps develop a youth’s social emotional skills.

Storytelling proves itself to be a strong tool to train creativity for two reasons. First, listening to stories triggers imagination. It allows us to explore new non-existing worlds; it encourages people to fill in the gaps, make stuff up, it allows us to dream. In other words, listening to stories encourages creativity. All stories do, great existing fairy tales and folk tales trigger sensorial creativity. The listener fills in scenes with tastes, smells, sounds, feelings, etc.. Personal or autobiographical stories also have a different quality, as they focus on an individual's process of coming into action. Thus, listening to personal stories can be empowering to the listener. This brings us to the second reason why storytelling is a good tool to train creativity: telling a story, the feeling of being heard by peers, leads to the feeling of being empowered. Creating a story supports personal growth for youths, as empathy is an important part of the exchange of stories. Often there is recognition and resonance when listening to a story, which leads to a greater understanding of the other.

In short, using creativity in making and sharing stories contributes to the well-being of young people. This is incredibly poignant in the times (and aftermath) of the global Covid-19 pandemic. The personal development of European youths has suffered greatly. In a highpoint of human life, their teens, their growth stagnated gravely due to the lockdown measures countries had enforced to embank the virus. Many lived a monotonous life with less activities, less experiences, less friends and family, less stories and less fun.

The main goal of the Digital Storytelling Toolbox is the stimulation of creativity and enjoyment of making stories. We see this as an urgent matter. In a hyper-media world youths are constantly overloaded with marketing and/or artistic works. Whether it is a tv-commercial for a soft drink or a cell phone provider, an arthouse movie or Hollywood blockbuster, a ten euro t-shirt of a million euro painting or a song in a club; high-end creative products are everywhere these days and it is very understandable to feel uncreative, uninspired and talentless. Of course, none of these have to be true.

The WYCS project offers European youth workers a new storytelling methodology that boosts creativity among youths. The exercises are easy, the theory is simple and universal, the build-up of the workshop is clear, the conversations facilitated will bring people closer together through laughter and playfulness.

Using the storytelling tools the youth worker will attain new skills that facilitate youths to practice presenting ánd listening. Doing so, the youth worker gives youths the opportunity to have a casual dialogue about differences and common ground. Without knowing, youths are stimulated towards personal development and social inclusion. The exercises aim to facilitate learning to tell a story, working together and having fun doing so. A major