StoryWork Project

The StoryWork Project is hosted by the Healthy Start TA & Support Center (TASC), and designed in partnership with and led by nurse midwife, researcher, and storyteller, Dr. Janelle Palacios. The StoryWork Project is a novel project that aims to increase knowledge of US-based Indigenous histories and awareness of how historical policies have shaped and continue to shape American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) outcomes, while integrating the latest research on storytelling affecting health outcomes and changing policies and practices. 

The overarching goal of the StoryWork Project is to create an increased readiness among diverse MCH leaders to shift narratives that are strength based at the intersection of history and storytelling in order to authentically engage with families and communities on a journey of healing and repairing, affecting maternal and child health (MCH) outcomes. Storytelling is an ancient form of learning and communicating. Science is just now catching up to what many cultures and communities understood, that stories have the power to change hearts, minds and actions.

The StoryWork Project works with participants to reveal how a Western dominated cultural perspective has historically shaped values, practices, and policies throughout the US, framing BIPOC health in a deficit based framework, with an emphasis on AI/AN history and maternal/ child outcomes. Through participation in the StoryWork Project, participants focus on integrating history to gain a deeper understanding of current and ongoing MCH outcomes and processes by exploring the roots of racism and identifying how structural racism has permeated policies and practices affecting outcomes, while integrating these learnings to identify new positive narratives that center family and community, through the healing art of storytelling.