Part of the initial work of the People with Experience (PWE) work stream will include the further development of the narrative archive produced by the University of Northumbria.

Listening to a first hand account of a person's life experience allows us to empathise in a very direct way with that person's story. Narrative approaches to interviews attempt to create a space where people can tell their stories as they wish with a minimum of direction or intervention by the interviewer.

Originally collected by audio tape, new technologies now provide a powerful way to capture both audio and visual histories, which permits users to search through material relevant to their own interests easily and quickly, without listening to hours of tape or reading through pages of transcript.

The PWE group intends to collect and record the experiences of users who have difficulties accessing healthcare services. From this, a repository of archives will be developed which will be used by healthcare educators in the North East to link with modules and other learning materials. It is hoped that this will encourage future healthcare providers to routinely include the views of patients and other service users, in order to ensure quality, patient-centred, healthcare provision.

Examples of Narrative Archives

Living with Parkinson's Disease 

Ruth is a  person living with Parkinson's disease. With these drawings she attempts to illustrate her experience of that condition and by clicking on the drawings, you can hear Ruth's further account of the meaning of each drawing.

These materials also illustrate the innovative use of the narrative techniques that we hope will come to characterise the PWE workstream's approach to the development of this resource.

PWE workstream plans for development - get involved

'...an activist, a service user, a researcher and an academic. I do not define myself in any shape or form by my impairment, nor should others'

Part of the initial work of the CETL4HealthNE People with Experience (PwE) work stream will include the further development of the narrative archive material produced by Northumbria University. The focus of this work will be on the experiences of services users and carers who have some of the greatest difficulties accessing healthcare services for different reasons. The aim is to involve the CETL4HealthNE partners and voluntary sector groups in developing an online multimedia database of narrative resources related to individuals' experiences of healthcare which will be used to support the learning of healthcare students studying in the NE.

Potential benefits for collaborators
All collaborators will potentially benefit from both the developmental process and the final resource to be produced.

CETL4HealthNE partner organisations will gain:
a staff development opportunity in relation to -
learning a new skill and using a new technology
access to community groups
development of a learning resource for students

Collaborating voluntary sector groups will gain from:
the developmental potential of learning a new skill and using a new technology
the therapeutic benefits for participants inherent in narrative approaches
the empowering element of communicating experiences with a view to changing practice

Healthcare students will gain from:
staff who are sensitised to the individual voices of healthcare service users
a local generated, searchable resource of individual healthcare experiences

To find out more about the narrative, please visit the following link: http://www.talkinghealthmatters.ac.uk

Useful links to a range of Narrative resources

• Rita Charon's introduction to the idea of narrative medicine
• Brilliant resource, put your feet up, open the wine, sit back and choose from a range of video lectures on applications the narrative approach to health issues. Broadband a must.
• A very interesting and well structured site that develops a 'narrative mediation paradigm' for conflict resolution.
• Article that looks at narrative as a foundation for active patient participation
• Oral history video interviews of people with Cerebral Palsy
• Article describing a project that explores the application of narrative theory and digital technology in relation to child development.
• Interesting article by Michael Bamberg on the narrative construction of identities in children and adolescents
• Interesting paper that discusses the interdisciplinary nature of the narrative approach by looking at applications in education, urban studies and nursing.
• 2006 -e-science conference page
• There are some great new carer narratves on the Patient Voices website
• http://www.nhs.uk/Video/Pages/medialibrary.aspx
• Management of dementia http://fitsweb.uchc.edu/Days/days.html