"Reviving the “LifeBook”: Using Social Constructionism to Celebrate and Understand Difference in HBSE"
Tracy A. Marschall
1400 E. Hanna Avenue
Indianapolis,
Phone: 317.788.3344
Fax: 317.788.3480
Abstract:
While events across the lifespan are important for a practitioner to understand, even more salient is the meaning assigned to them by the client, meaning constructed as a result of individual and cultural differences. We’ll explore how an old intervention from child welfare known as “The LifeBook” with connections to art therapy techniques, narrative therapy, therapeutic journaling and contemporary scrapbooking can provide students with a mechanism to understand diversity in Human Behavior and the Social Environment.
Description:
Social contructionism, post-modernism, constructivism – students struggle with unwieldy abstracts in theoretical courses such as Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Usually, though sometimes reluctantly, they eventually come to understand the importance of theoretical perspectives guiding practice and how a working knowledge of lifespan development will indicate when and how to intervene with clients appropriately. Using narrative techniques to identify and re-author one’s life story has the capacity for connecting those abstractions with concrete life experiences.
Our life stories not only
say something about us but also impact our capacity to achieve, grow, and heal. Our
stories are important, culturally. They make up the oral history of our collective
culture. Each distinct story is a separate thread in the rich tapestry of our lives; each
distinct story has value – on its own and in relation to others. Stories also have
value as modeling, an example or learning tool for others.
From a
practitioner’s perspective, our personal narratives are important. It tells us where
people are. It tells us how they view themselves. It gives us clues as to where and how to
intervene. It helps us understand the difference between two children from the same
environment, one resilient, another not so. This presentation will discuss how
narrative therapy techniques focusing on the way we construct our life stories help
students to engage in a multi-step, client-centered project.
This project, inspired by the concept of LifeBooks in foster care, an attempt to document children’s fragmented histories during the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980’s, as well as preparation for adoption, requires students to apply elements of visual representation (ie. Photographs, memorabilia, drawings) with meaning-rich narrative. Some take the format of a scrapbook, supported by a booming hobby industry. Others choose technology such as video or powerpoint to assemble their client-colleague’s story. Already documented outcomes for Lifebooks with children in out-of-home placements include increased self-esteem, reduced “magical thinking” about families of origin, increased understanding/insight about life circumstances and a sense of history and place. It was hypothesized that similar outcomes might result, even when working with different client populations (young adults, women in mid-life, the elderly) and different client contexts (grief, Alzheimer’s, infertility). Students will apply concepts of LifeBooks as they work with a client/colleague to identify key life events and explore the meanings assigned to them as they make up their life narrative. The emphasis on the client/colleague as the author of her/his life story also places the student-practitioner as the learner with regard to the intersections of race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/class/faith and gender in the life of the author.
As students engage in the process of facilitating the authoring and re-working of client-colleague life stories, they are accomplishing many educational tasks:
·
Practicing interviewing and attending
skills
·
Engaging in the assessment process
·
Testing their understanding of lifespan
development
·
Engaging in critical thinking and problem
solving
·
Identifying and making explicit the
connections between individual experience and institutional racism, heterosexism, sexism
and class discrimination
The presentation will include a brief discussion of relevant theoretical perspectives; a description of how the project/assignment has evolved over approximately four years to be more meaningful, and student reactions to the project. Student samples will be shared with permission from both student-practitioners and client-colleagues.