Storytelling for Health and Wellbeing

We are delighted to announce that Swansea Bay Health Board, Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board, Beyond the Border, Awen Cultural Trust, and the University of South Wales are working together towards the next gathering of ‘Storytelling for Health and Wellbeing’, which will take place on 6th July 2023 at the Atrium, University of South Wales, Cardiff, CF24 2FN.  The focus of this event is “what is a story for health and wellbeing?”.  This one-day event builds upon the successful Storytelling for Health conferences, which took place in 2017, 2019, and 2021.  Conference bookings will open in April 2023.

Call for Contributions

We are currently inviting proposals  for papers, presentations, performances and posters from community groups, storytellers and artists, practitioners in health, social care and community, academics, and others with an interest in the topic. Our aims are to acknowledge and celebrate the importance and growth of storytelling for health and to understand and promote good practice. We are particularly keen to hear about projects which privilege the story as told by the person or people themselves, which support people and communities to articulate their own story of health, illness, and wellbeing, which enable others to learn from listening more carefully to the stories of health and ill health, and which trouble the notion of ‘patienthood’. We are seeking contributions from any and all areas of health and wellbeing and are keen to embrace storytelling in the widest possible sense and through a range of art forms, including but not limited to:

• Written Word
• Visual Art
• Spoken Word
• Digital
• Performance
• Oral storytelling
• Music
• Movement
• Community Dialogue

Contributions may take the form of short talks, performances, workshops, films, workshops, or presentations which can include digital exhibition of artworks. We are seeking contributions that are innovative in their means of presentation and also welcome contributions in other formats.

Contributions can be either:

• A 20 minute paper
• A 30 minute session which may take the form of a panel discussion or creative contributions
• A 60 minute workshop
• A poster presentation, visual, or digital exhibition
• Another form (please specify weather you would require a 20, 30, or 60 minute slot)

Please complete the proposal form here by end of Thursday 4th May 2023. We will notify you id your proposal has been selected by end of Monday 15th May.