Narrating, writing, reading: life story work as an aid to (self) advocacy

Abstract

Accessible Summary This article is about life story work with people with learning disabilities. It talks about reading and writing stories, and listening to them. Telling your life story, writing it down and talking about it with others can be an important part of self‐advocacy for people with learning disabilities. Life stories are helpful when they are told or written in a way that brings back memories that tell you about the real person. They should be written in a clear and honest way. These stories are very important, and other people need to listen to or read them in a careful and respectful way. Life stories show how each person is special and an individual in their own right, with their own history. This is not the case in the files and records of most service organizations. Life story work can help people with learning disabilities to feel good about themselves and to understand themselves better. It also helps support workers and others to see each person with learning disabilities as an individual, to understand important relationships, and the ways in which the person they are working with makes sense of his or her life.

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