Creative health promotion methods for young LGBTIQA+ people

Abstract

This paper evaluates the potential efficacy of using life writing to address mental health disparities and to promote health and well-being among young LGBTIQA+ persons. It examines the potential benefits of young LGBTIQA+ people engaging with life writing including memoir, autobiography, creative nonfiction, journaling and digital storytelling. These benefits include exploring identity and making sense of one’s experiences, unifying and empowering marginalised communities, providing people with agency, illuminating common experiences, and facilitating the exchange of resources and support. It evaluates current developments in literacy and English education and identifies an increasing trend towards neo-liberalism and economic discourses, potentially at the expense of providing opportunities for young people to develop creativity and engage in self-exploration. It discusses the author’s experiences in running life writing workshops with groups of LGBTIQA+ young people and offers suggestions on how to run similar workshops in educational and wider community settings, including possible prompts, modes of working and debriefing the participants. Overall, the findings suggest that life writing can be used to improve the health and well-being of LGBTIQA+ young people; however, the paper concludes that this sort of intervention needs to be run respectfully, strategically and with full awareness of how sensitive and traumatic the content may be that can emerge for young people. For this reason, the paper presents guidelines and recommendations to provide structure and support.

Keywords

Digital storytelling LGBTQ life writing pedagogy well-being youth

Setting the scene

This paper evaluates the use of life writing to promote self-expression, empowerment, agency and well-being in young people. It explores whether this approach could be used in educational and wider community settings to provide better outcomes for LGBTIQA+¹ youth. It aims to determine the best ways of encouraging children and young people (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare [AIHW], 2016) to engage with life writing in a range of appropriate and accessible formats. The research on which it draws adopted an interdisciplinary approach, engaging with literature from education, health and a variety of arts disciplines. The intersections and the conflicts between these different fields provided both challenges and benefits, which is why the decision was made to combine them in this work.

The suggestions that follow are based on my experience as a freelance writer and English teacher. I have attempted to maintain transparency, authenticity and reflexivity when discussing my approach to storytelling, to ensure that I am not uniformly positive about the process. Work with LGBTIQA+ youth requires sensitivity and care, ensuring that challenging and traumatic content is addressed and that participants are adequately debriefed and supported. Another key consideration in the context of increasing neo-liberal reforms across societal institutions is the prospect of shifting the onus onto individuals and expecting them to self-manage their own mental health and well-being, particularly at times of crisis. Ultimately, the research described here aimed to facilitate engagement with broader health promotion principles and values by promoting collaboration and reflection across a range of academic disciplines.

Young people’s health and well-being

New tools and strategies are needed to promote the health and well-being of young people who identify as LGBTIQA+. According to the 2007 Australian National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing results, one in four people aged 16–24 indicated that they had had a mental disorder (Australian Bureau of Statistics [ABS], 2008). In 2015, suicide was the leading cause of death of children aged 5–17 years (ABS, 2016). Around 1 in 10 people aged 12–17 reported having engaged in some form of self-harm (Lawrence et al., 2015). Across all these indicators for mental health and well-being, LGBTIQA+ youth are far worse off, particularly those experiencing harassment and violence related to their identities (Hillier et al., 2010).

Policy change, additions to the curriculum and frameworks, and medical or psychological interventions (AIHW, 2016; Department of Education and Training [DET], 2014; Orygen: The National Centre of Excellence in Youth Mental Health, 2016) have sought to improve outcomes with some success. Life writing may be an innovative way to further address mental health disparities among LGBTIQA+ youth.

Life writing

Life writing is a complex genre that includes memoir, essays, autobiographies, creative nonfiction, journaling and new digital forms of presenting stories. Fuller and Sodo (2015) identify three categories of life writing: the formative, the transformational and relational, and the transcendent or survival. This research examines the possible benefits of life writing as a strategy for improving well-being. Creativity can recover a sense of personhood, including recognition, respect and trust (Lee and Hudson, 2007). Conley (2012) states that lives can be changed by the power of storytelling and describes the way that story accesses one’s inner life, including passions and fears. Flood and Phillips (2007) found that creative activities, including journaling, can increase self-esteem and coping skills and reduce anxiety. Kroth and Cranton’s (2014) research into transformative learning describes the power of storytelling in its capacity for understanding self and society. Research indicates that exchanging stories may offer benefits across the age spectrum (Smith and Thurston, 2007), particularly on shared experiences such as prejudice, a sense of ‘Otherness’ or not belonging, and navigating the hybridity of identities.

Narrative therapy

Narrative therapy was developed in the 1970s by White and Epston (1990) who explored the prospect of ‘externalising’ conversations or perceiving problems as being external and separate to people. Morgan (2002) describes the way that ‘narrative practices can assist in tracing the history of problems, exploring their effects and situating them in the broader social context that allows for their deconstruction’ (p. 89). Narrative therapy has been found to be beneficial in multiple populations and settings (Ricks et al., 2014); however, it is important to recognise that some individuals ‘might not be ready to deal with their experiences’ (Taylor et al., 2016: 60), especially in the case of LGBTIQA+ young people who may have experienced trauma.

Storytelling on social media

Many young people are already engaging in some form of storytelling in their personal lives, often through social media. Vivienne’s (2016) research explores social media as a form of storytelling that can be more effective or organic than other forms. Apps like Instagram, SnapChat and Facebook Messenger allow users to collate and share stories about their day, literally called ‘Stories’ or ‘My Day’. These tools allow those working with young people to extend existing writing into other forms, including life writing.

Digital storytelling

Digital storytelling is a process used to capture personal stories using images and sound (De Vecchi et al., 2016). It has been trialled in various countries, including Australia (Thompson, 2015), and is a facilitated practice whereby individuals with little or no experience of storytelling have the opportunity to tell a personal story complete with narration (Lambert, 2010). Participants use images and their own voice and work together over several days or for a few weeks. Vivienne (2016) describes digital stories as a form of ‘everyday activism’, particularly for those with stigmatised or fraught identities.

Identity and well-being in curriculum documents

Education has become increasingly politicised in recent years. Neoliberal policies and frameworks have led to increased political involvement in literacy education and managerialist reform (Illesca, 2007). In Australia, since the implementation of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN; National Assessment Program, 2016), literacy skills have been measured and assessed with limited consideration of the students’ sociocultural backgrounds and contexts (Lu and Cross, 2014). Such a practice runs contrary to the Melbourne Declaration on Educational Goals for Young Australians (MDEGYA) (Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs [MCEETYA], 2008), which is intended to underpin all educational policy, curriculum and frameworks. The Declaration refers specifically to the need to ensure that schooling promotes ‘personalised learning’ and contributes to a society that ‘respects and appreciates cultural, social and religious diversity’ (p. 7).

In 2008, under the National Education Agreement and the Schools Assistance Act, all schools agreed to introduce an Australia-wide curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority [ACARA], 2017a). This curriculum comprises a set of national standards used from Foundation to Year 10 and certain Senior Secondary subjects.

The implementation of the Australian Curriculum is decided upon by individual state and territory school and curriculum authorities (ACARA, 2017b). In the state of Victoria, the Government introduced the new Victorian Curriculum F-10 in 2015, which was implemented in schools in 2017. It incorporates the Australian Curriculum while reflecting ‘Victorian priorities and standards’ (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority [VCAA], 2017).

The Australian Curriculum for English is organised into three interrelated strands: language, literature and literacy. All three stands involve writing and creating texts, ‘including texts that combine specific digital or media content’ (ACARA, 2017c). From Years 3 to 10, all the English level descriptions mention that the study of English should involve students interacting ‘in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments’ (ACARA, 2017c). Text lists are prescribed for Year 12 students (Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards [BOSTES], 2014; VCAA, 2016) and contain a variety of genres, including creative nonfiction. Specific texts are not prescribed for levels Foundation to Year 10; the Australian Curriculum provides a summary of the sorts of texts to be used and links to various websites ‘that may be of interest’ (ACARA, 2017c). Texts are also not prescribed for Year 11 students, and BOSTES (2016) suggests that ‘Teachers are advised to consider the ethos of the school and its local community when selecting specific texts for study’. While this allows educators to make professional decisions about the choice of texts, it also means that certain genres, subjects, authors and texts may be overlooked or deliberately excluded. This has implications for well-being, as socially marginalised young people may not feel adequately represented in the texts studied at school, potentially leaving them alienated and disengaged.

The Australian Curriculum outlines seven general capabilities: ‘Critical and Creative Thinking’, ‘Personal and Social Capability’, ‘Ethical Understanding’, ‘Intercultural Understanding’, ‘Literacy’, ‘Numeracy’ and ‘ICT Capability’. These are to be addressed by the content of the learning areas (ACARA, 2017d). As is the case with many of the more holistic and identity-based aspects of education, it is not mandatory for educators to apply the general capabilities to their teaching and assessment practices. The extent to which educators apply the general capabilities is linked, inevitably, to personal interest and motivation, as well as to the school’s values and philosophy. In contrast, identity and well-being are explored extensively throughout the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF; DET, 2010), which provides guidance and resources for early childhood educators.

Conceptions of literacy

Literacy is contentious, political and ideological, and ‘there is no “neutral space” in which literacy can be generically defined’ (Freebody, 2007: 12). Gee (2004) describes traditional literacy practices which aim to develop academic language as ‘old literacies’. Papen (2005) explores literacy as three concepts: functional literacy, which refers to literacy as a fixed set of skills; critical literacy, which involves critical analysis of dominant culture, power and society; and liberal literacy, which involves a humanist view of literacy as a right and source of well-being. Street (as cited in Markose et al., 2011) distinguishes two major categories of literacy: an autonomous model, which emphasises the functional requirements of reading and writing, and an ideological model, which defines literacy as a set of social practices embedded in institutions. The New London Group (1996) has coined the term multiliteracies in response to changing communication methods and increasing cultural and linguistic diversity (Mills, 2009). This approach has expanded the scope of literacy to include a variety of text types, particularly those that are digital or multimodal.

The literature listed above, despite differences in categorisation of skills, conceptualises literacy as involving social practices, language and cultural dimensions (Markose, 2007). This contrasts with neo-liberal educational ideologies, which have largely reconceptualised teaching as an economic discourse in which students are reduced to a means of improving performance (Kostogriz and Doecke, 2013). Economic discourses emphasise reducing illiteracy and increasing employability (Papen, 2005). Policies focused on eradicating illiteracy can limit the development of new approaches to literacy and impact their funding (Freebody, 2007). Lu and Cross (2014), examining representations of literacy within the new Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2017a), found that it focuses primarily on a decontextualised skills-based version of literacy. Despite the curriculum’s references to multimodal texts (ACARA, 2017c), the prevalence of multimodal texts is rarely reflected in external assessment practices.

Culturally responsive pedagogy

Current approaches to literacy can potentially have a negative impact on young people’s well-being, especially when they do not engage with social and cultural diversity. Gee’s (1991) work distinguishes between primary discourses, referring to home and culture, and secondary discourses in institutions such as schools and workplaces. Many institutions use academic discourses and language, which serve as a ‘gate to economic success and sociopolitical power’ (Gee, 2004: 280). Dominant discourses, or those which lead to money, power and status (Gee, 1991), are highly valued in traditional literacy education. Students whose home and cultural discourses align with those valued at school are rewarded (Gee, 2004). Moje and Hinchman (2004) argue that to be best practice, education needs to be culturally responsive. They assert that culturally responsive pedagogy uses students’ experiences and discourses as a bridge to academic, conventional discourse; teaches students how to communicate and navigate a range of discourse communities; and challenges traditional curriculum, making space for marginalised voices to construct new knowledge. Educators may need to make ‘curricular and pedagogical adjustments’ (Paris and Ball, 2009: 392), but this work is critical for making classrooms more inclusive, potentially improving mental health outcomes and promoting well-being.

Origins and entanglements

This paper deliberately links culturally responsive pedagogy to well-being for several reasons, both personal and pragmatic. Some of my family members arrived in Australia as ‘stateless’ migrants in the early 1970s. When I first learned about culturally responsive pedagogy, and related pedagogical and philosophical approaches to educating diverse, erased or oppressed young people, I began to understand what my relatives may have experienced at school and work after migrating: a deep sense of disconnection and alienation. Beyond my personal reasons for exploring this area, I have found that my most successful teaching practice began when I started to consider each young person holistically, taking into account their cultures, languages, histories, traumas, families and identities, and when I provided culturally specific support and resources, as well as a safe classroom space for each child to explore these intersections.

The third space

Developments in literacy education can avoid such a loss of identity, particularly when educators engage with students’ out-of-school practices in the classroom. Paris and Ball (2009) explore research into the uses of rap and hip-hop in the English classroom as linguistically and culturally relevant texts with which to engage some students. Schwartz’s (2015) research explores the ways that non-dominant students’ experiences, networks and practices can be used as powerful resources for learning, but noted that new media tools and resources remained underused at school.

Students’ out-of-school literacies include families’ and out-of-school knowledge and resources. Gutiérrez, Baquedano-Lopez, Tejada and Riveria’s concept of the ‘third space’ (as cited in Paris and Ball, 2009) refers to the challenge of combining students’ funds of knowledge, from parents, peers and culture, with academic discourses in a third hybrid space in which neither is lost. This can be achieved in schools, who could apply this pedagogical approach to their planning and assessment, and in wider community settings, many of which may do this more intuitively.

The third space ‘draws on both dominant cultural resources and dominant language and patterns of discourse, and the cultural resources and discourse of the family and community of origin of the student’ (Bhabha, 1994; Gutierrez, 2008, cited in Davis and Foley, 2016: 324). It involves combining students’ cultural resources, including social, cultural and community resources, with dominant discourse and language in a third hybrid space. Without making major changes to existing frameworks, such an approach could encourage educators, youth workers, social workers, arts workers and community-based facilitators to make a more direct connection between students’ lives and their experiences around learning and literacy. This does not need to be confined to the English language subject area; it can be applied widely across disciplines and contexts.

Critical pedagogy

According to Paris and Ball (2009), it is crucial for educators to investigate and critique power and inequity. Mills (2007) notes the need for culturally inclusive practices rather than ‘tokenistic tributes to diversity’ (p. 240). Morell’s (2004) research into critical pedagogy identifies Freire and Bakhtin as intellectual leaders who provide a sense of hope for critical educators. He cites Bakhtin’s ‘politics of pedagogy’ (p. 91), referring to teaching as a political act, in which educators are required to be advocates and activists for dialogic pedagogy. Pruyn (2013) asserts that students understand oppression and ‘know when their individual and collective experiences are either ignored, or, indeed, disrespected in lieu of those of the more powerful’ (p. 13). Williams (2005) advocates for explicit, direct discussion with students about conventions, discourses and marginalisation, providing students with the knowledge and power to make choices about their learning. In addition to using students’ funds of knowledge as resources or ‘bridges’, culturally responsive pedagogy should ‘claim a space for marginalised voices and to construct new knowledge’ (Moje and Hinchman, 2004: 326).

The literature indicates a range of contrasting views on how to approach critical pedagogy, particularly with pre-service teachers. Faulkner and Crowhurst (2015) describe the challenges, tensions and limitations inherent within disruptive teaching approaches and critical teacher education pedagogies. They highlight the difficulty of navigating contradictory pedagogical and philosophical spaces and allowing multiple viewpoints to co-exist despite having critical agendas. More training is needed in this area, but it is also necessary to recognise that co-existence and appreciation of contradictory viewpoints are essential for meaningful education. Of course, this involves self-reflection and analysis by the educator or facilitator running the workshop or class, who needs to be able to counter their own biases and any defensiveness before commencing this work.

Intersectionality

Multiliteracies and critical pedagogies can create space for marginalised students, many of whom have multiple identities, cultures and experiences shaping their daily lives and interactions. It is possible to make space for all identities in one classroom, but doing so requires an effort, analysis and flexibility on the part of the educator or facilitator. Factors that impact students’ lived experiences include race, religion, sexuality, gender, class and disability, or intersections of these factors. Kimberle Crenshaw’s writing on intersectionality describes the way that the experiences of women of colour – particularly in relation to violence – are shaped by race and gender, as well as class and sexuality. As Crenshaw (1991) explains, ‘My focus on the intersections of race and gender only highlights the need to account for multiple grounds of identity…’ (p. 1245).

The workshops

The work described in this paper set out to study how life writing can be used to promote self-expression, empowerment, agency and well-being in young LGBTIQA+ people. LGBTIQA+ youth often experience harassment and violence related to their identity (Hillier et al., 2010), with concomitant negative health implications, suggesting that new methods of health promotion are needed. The study utilised literature from education, the arts and health alongside my personal experiences running these workshops to examine how life writing could be used to improve the health and well-being of young LGBTIQA+ people. While Australian settings are the focus of this paper, the implications can be applied to global contexts and can be used in educational and wider community settings.

In advancing such an agenda, it is critical to allow young people to make decisions around the content, themes and presentation of their life writing:

To contribute to … critical reframing of pedagogies, we as educators must attend to the identities of students, to critically consider how students’ lifeworlds shape meaning-making and can re-shape literacy as meaningful in schools. (Miller et al., 2012: 126)

For some LGBTIQA+ young people, especially those who may be marginalised in other aspects of their lives as well as through their diverse sexuality and gender identities, the approach to life writing may border on auto-ethnography. Auto-ethnography is a qualitative narrative methodology in which writing is a method of inquiry (Richardson, 2000). Auto-ethnography links the personal to the cultural or is a personal encounter within an educational context (Dyson, 2007). It is important to recognise that auto-ethnography is a highly relevant tool for writers from marginalised backgrounds and communities. As Rickard (2014) suggests, it should be used ‘to explore some of the ways dominant narratives can silence, constrain and marginalise some people’ (p. 348). Rather than writing about their lives in a predominantly creative or literary style, this style of work seeks to answer a question of some variety. For young people experiencing challenges, including prejudice or discrimination, writing can potentially allow them to find answers.

I outline a number of suggestions for facilitating life writing workshops, based on my experience as an English educator and as an artist-facilitator. First, it is important to promote the activity or workshop as a creative nonfiction workshop in which participants write about themselves or issues that interest them. As young people may not have engaged with this genre before, it is beneficial to provide some examples of life writing, both print form and digital. Second, it may be helpful to begin work with independent writing in an initial session that is technology free. Later on, it may be possible to introduce the media production aspects of digital storytelling and encourage the use of voice-overs, music, photographs, sound effects and relevant documents, culminating in a digital media piece. It is critical that educators or facilitators recognise that digital storytelling can often assume prior knowledge and skills and may exclude some. It may be helpful to state explicitly that digital storytelling may not suit everyone and give the participants the choice. If they have choice over their medium and genre, I find that young people know quite intuitively how to work, without feeling embarrassed or ashamed about their reasons.

Respect for boundaries is important. Set some parameters at the start, including housekeeping and expectations for the workshop, and ensure that participants are aware of how to be respectful. It is crucial to assure everyone of privacy and anonymity if desired. Depending on the setting and context of the workshop and the age of the participants, it may be helpful to inform a range of people, including parents, the school well-being team or principal, the social worker or youth worker, or an appropriate staff member or volunteer in the case of the charity sector, and have an action plan in place in case of any well-being concerns.

To set the scene and indicate that the space is safe and inclusive, I often start by playing novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED talk called ‘The danger of a single story’ (Adichie, 2009). This can set the tone and indicate to participants that there is not one set approach to storytelling. For LGBTIQA+ young people who often do not see themselves represented in literacy and literary studies, this is essential and reminds them that their identities and stories – regardless of the approach, tone and content – are important, valid and recognised in the workshop space.

Sample workshop prompts

While storytelling offers opportunities to explore traumatic events, this does not mean that every young person will write about them. Many may gain more from writing about the positive aspects of their identities and experiences, since the negative aspects may be a large and burdensome part of their lives. For this reason, it is important to provide choice and to keep instructions vague so that young people can adjust the prompts so that they can explore desired topics and content.

An ideal introductory prompt is to ask the participants to think of several objects in their lives that symbolise significant relationships or events. They should choose one of these objects and describe it in detail, using the five senses to convey how they feel about it. They might want to describe the moment they received or interacted with this item for the first time. This prompt allows participants to choose whether they select an object associated with complex emotions.

Another prompt is to ask the participants to describe themselves as though they are characters, focusing on their physical appearance and mannerisms at first and writing from the perspective of someone looking at them. Afterwards, they should write about themselves again but this time focus on their internal world. This can lead to a dynamic discussion about the differences between the two pieces and what each piece reflects about the ‘character’ and their internal and external traits and conflicts. For young people struggling with societal or familial rejection due to their sexuality or gender identity, this can be quite challenging and revealing as it brings up the variation between their internal world and how they are perceived.

Debriefing the group

The first time I ran a life writing workshop, the young people came from a range of backgrounds and did not specifically identify as LGBTIQA+. I encouraged participants to talk to the person next to them about their writing, share a quote or describe the object if they felt comfortable doing so. One participant was comfortable sharing his work with me and another participant, describing his flamboyant gay identity in a sharp and humorous piece. He did not want however to share his work with the group as a whole. When I later ran workshops specifically for LGBTIQA+ young people, however, they felt safe and comfortable sharing their work with the group.

Debriefing is an important aspect of facilitating workshops. In addition to speaking with participants one-on-one during each workshop, I have also run whole-group debriefs. In these, I ask participants about the themes and subjects that emerged in the writing. I also ensure that I address any sensitive content in the writing privately with individuals and offered support when required.

Implications for health and well-being

The approaches discussed above have the potential to shift the work conducted in educational and community settings so that it can be more contextualised and relevant to young LGBTIQA+ people’s everyday lives. Even in the secondary classroom, which is often focused entirely on content, curriculum and assessments, there are multiple opportunities to explore identity and promote health and well-being.

Storytelling offers LGBTIQA+ young people opportunities to gather stories, documents and information that may help them better understand their sexuality and gender identity and connect with their communities and those outside. Writing workshops, especially those offering digital storytelling and unconventional approaches to writing, provide opportunities to develop literacy and critical analysis skills while exploring issues surrounding sexuality and gender and how these relate to other aspects of their identities, power structures and institutions, and inequities experienced by LGBTIQA+ youth. Gaining confidence in storytelling offers LGBTIQA+ young people a creative outlet and opportunities for self-exploration, especially for those who do not encounter queer or gender-diverse characters, plots and themes in their classrooms.

Conclusion

Writing, especially in a collaborative context, can provide agency, unify and empower marginalised communities, illuminate common experiences, including the ongoing impact of trauma, and facilitate the exchange of resources. For young people who feel as though they do not fit into the mainstream, and this is the case for many LGBTIQA+ youth, life writing offers opportunities to explore, collaborate and build an understanding of the self and others that may increase a sense of belonging, empathy and well-being. For social workers and youth workers, storytelling can be a useful tool to consider within evaluation work and in the assessment of interventions that may be related to trauma. Crucially, storytelling may assist some young LGBTIQA+ people to work through rejection, harassment, abuse and dysphoria, while others may use it to explore more positive aspects of their sexuality or gender identity.

Despite my positionality as a writer and English teacher, I have attempted to remain objective and self-reflexive throughout this research. These workshops can be linked to the curriculum and run in educational settings or kept entirely separate. It is feasible to run these workshops with all groups, including young people with behavioural issues, disabilities and lack of resources. I have seen students find great success in writing when their personal needs and context are directly addressed. Regardless of the setting, additional professional development, learning and training are required so that facilitators can approach this work in a way that improves outcomes, rather than further marginalising young people who may already feel disconnected, disengaged and not ‘heard’ at school or home.

This paper has sought to position writing as an outlet for creativity, well-being and exploring identity, as opposed to its current role within neoliberal frameworks and curriculums. It should be part of young people’s lives, whether at school, local library or community centre, or in groups connecting people with similar identities. I wish my relatives had been able to attend writing workshops when they arrived in Australia, as it could have been beneficial in developing their confidence with language and sense of identity in a new country. Life writing can potentially benefit any groups or individuals who are marginalised or struggling. My goal is to offer young LGBTIQA+ people around the world the outlet that I was able to find for myself and that I provide for the young people I work with.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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