Facilitators

Mentor your team through a shared adventure of adapting academic research into creative narrative.

Storyhouse training resources are freely available for any institution to reuse or deploy.

The Storyhouse curriculum is designed to empower participants to transform research into meaningful narratives that inspire action. Through a blend of storytelling, science communication, and performance, this approach helps to connect new knowledge with the communities, professionals, and policymakers who can implement change — expanding the reach of research and strengthening its real-world impact.

The Process

Over a nine-week period, participants collaborate to test, refine, and perform their narratives. The process is divided into three phases:

Weeks 1 to 4: Focus on crafting the narrative. Participants will study their selected article, identify their target audience, and apply principles of story craft and narrative theory.

Weeks 5 to 7: Emphasis on performance preparation. Participants will work on managing nervousness, enhancing engagement, and preparing for their final performance.

Weeks 8 and 9: Reflect & refine. Participants will reflect on their experience and refine their work for the final podcast and written manuscript, ensuring proper formatting and presentation.

Facilitation Tools

Storyhouse Facilitator’s Guide

The Facilitator’s Handbook was created by Leena Mohamed Faleel, Navya Sahithi Narukulla and Angwara Nilanont, as part of MEDSCIEN 4995E, a Community Engaged Learning (CEL) course at Western University, in collaboration with the Storyhouse program.

If you are interested in coaching a cohort of students through the Storyhouse training modules, the Storyhouse Facilitator’s Guide provides a systematic program overview, explains the learning objectives, and offers numerous exercises and activities for prompting group cohesion and creativity.

This handbook brings all the “threads” of the Storyhouse training together in one place. It provides Storyhouse facilitators with a rich collection of activities, insights and resources. As you deploy and adapt Storyhouse to your institution or context, we hope you find this tool to be a helpful “one-stop shop” of ideas and support along the way.

• Download the Storyhouse Facilitator’s Guide (PDF)

• Download the workshop slides (ZIP)

Editable Schedule Template

This table (contained in a standard Word document) includes all the training video links and resource supports for your students. It is a ready-to-customize “syllabus” of the Storyhouse, which you can adapt to your institution and context. Use this template to schedule the logistics for your in-person workshops to easily keep everyone on the same page.

• Download editable Storyhouse schedule template (Word docx)

Messaging and Boilerplate Content

Invitational and promotional messaging draft content is available for reuse or repurposing:

• General program description content

• Boilerplate messaging for students

• Boilerplate messaging for faculty

• Boilerplate reminder emails

Publishing Your Stories

The Storyhouse resources are available to support research storytelling anywhere you choose. If you are interested in posting the finale narrative videos created by your cohort of students on the storyhouse.substack.com front page, please email story@uwo.ca for more information.

---

All Storyhouse resources are freely available and provided “as is” for adaptation and use.