Healing-Centered Engagement Via Multimedia Counter-Storytelling: A Framework for Processing Trauma and Healing With Youth

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Repair(ing)s of Education Through Identity and Multimodal Storytelling (Table 9)

Abstract

This case study focused on QuestLuv, a violence prevention nonprofit organization located in a Westside Chicago neighborhood, which combines youth mentorship with multimedia production. During QL’s 2023 Summer Institute, youth participants and mentors were interviewed and the digital content they created was reviewed through a Healing Centered Engagement (HCE) framework. This study contributes to a small but growing field of research investigating non-traditional forms of healing, specifically focusing on placed-at-risk youth involved in community violence. Multimedia counter-storytelling was an effective tool within the HCE framework for establishing relational trust and collaboration among mentors and youth participants, developing participants’ agency, and strengthening participants’ self-assurance and meaning making of their lived experience.

Author

• Jennifer Ventimiglia, Northeastern Illinois University