The St Mungo’s library is a part of a Glasgow school libraries project called “Storytelling for mental health”. “The aim is to implement book groups is an innovative way to bring students together from diverse settings. By sharing stories, the young people will have the opportunity to find new ways of expressing their emotional and mental health concerns. This will enable the young people to develop perspective and empathy, as well as the language to discuss emotional and mental health concerns. They will realise that if they are part of a minority group – in terms of disability, gender identification, ethnicity, race, and/or sexuality – that they are part of the library community, and that they will find books, activities, and resources to engage and support them. They will have a forum to fully express themselves in a non-judgmental environment, building their confidence and resilience, improving health and wellbeing and strengthening their creative, teamwork, writing, artistic and language skills. Book group activities would include taking turns reading aloud, acting out stories, quiet individual reading, and book discussions. Basic mindfulness and meditation exercises would form part of some sessions, to help students switch off from the school day.”
In St Mungo’s, we are having three incubator groups: the “EAL/storytelling for wellbeing” group every Thursdays, The “Storytelling for wellbeing” group lunch on Tuesdays and once a month the “Storycraft” group on Monday at lunch. They are very small groups where pupils can feel safe to create, share and speak aloud without any judgment.
The Storytelling clubs all started smoothly by an introduction session about the project, checking about their feelings by drawing or sharing with the help of the wellbeing wheel.
The Tuesday lunch club has decided to take another path and to explore stories from their dreams. They all have received a “journal” which they are, at the moment, personalising to make it their very own!
Later on, the pupils will be able to take it home and start to write about their dreams.
I’m very excited about this project and very intrigued to see how it turns!
To be continued…
