Why storytelling matters in adult social care: insights from North West ADASS

Why storytelling matters in adult social care 

Our colleagues in adult social care tell us that they are extremely busy and facing many difficult pressures. That’s why they value the time and the space to come together and think about things in a different way. One of those things is storytelling which is important because at its heart, it’s how humans communicate important things to one another. If you reflect on the important people you’ve worked with or things that have happened in your career, you’ll often recall them in a story-like way. This can include people’s achievements, dilemmas they’ve overcome and the changes that happened to them and others as a result.  

At the same time, many people in adult social care are committed to putting people first, and co-production and storytelling helps us to improve the ways in which we share people’s experiences. At the very least we think using storytelling can make presentations and reports much more interesting, but we also think storytelling can be transformational for organisations who want to think about their core values and how they can communicate them. 

Delivering a storytelling masterclass session 

At NW ADASS, we started work on storytelling for two reasons. First, we had produced our ‘Great Social Work, report to create a single narrative about the very best aspects of adult social care. We collected 11 case studies and put a lot of thought into how to try to make these as representative and as inspirational as possible. In doing so, we learned just how transformative storytelling can be. 

Second, our Future Markets programme had been reflecting on whether storytelling and narrative are important parts of the commissioning process. Storytelling can soften the boundaries between people with lived experience and professionals. 

A big theme from our work talking to commissioners about how they want to use storytelling has been to focus upon the value of shared human experience. People working in adult social care are aware that some of our systems are complicated and they want to improve co-production. Telling stories can elevate the experiences of people who draw on care and support. It can also humanise organisations and the people that work for them. We felt that our commissioners might benefit from understanding what makes for good storytelling and our Board asked us to develop a one day training session.  

We organised a masterclass session to discuss storytelling with more than 100 health and social care leaders in the region. We invited Will Storr, author of ‘The Science of Storytelling’ (2019) as a guest speaker, after being inspired and motivated by the ideas in his book which explores the theory about what makes a good story, with analyses from popular culture, films and books. It also talks about science in a very accessible way. Will explored how our senses connect to our brain; psychology and personality type; and how our sense of self and the things that make us individuals are genetic. He also explores the ways in which human societies have developed over time and how stories likely formed an important social glue bringing people together and providing group identity. 

The session asked how can storytelling help people to process their experiences, and to place people at the centre of health and social care. In adult social care we often produce case studies and try to describe why a service works well. Using storytelling improves case studies and the ones that are stories will feel real. The people in them will come to life and the reader will much more easily emphasise with them. The case study will feel more important as it will connect to important human values and more memorable as it will have a clear structure – a beginning, middle and end. 

We also explored how storytelling helps someone who is not involved adult social develop a better understanding and connect with of it as adult social care can be complicated and even more simple concepts are called things like “single handed care” or “right sized care”. We have complex systems with different providers and regulators. People often access services between health and social care.  Storytelling brings people’s real experiences to life. Storytelling ensures that those things that matter to people real people are brought to the fore.  

How to tell better stories 

When looking for anecdotes and stories to share, the most important aspect for practitioners is to really focus on what matters to people. We find it useful to explore parts of people’s lives that aren’t just connected to their care needs. Really good storytelling would use some of those details in an illustrative way. For example, one of our documents talks about a young boy whose life was becoming chaotic. He loved to draw but the illustrations were becoming dark. We thought that was a great way to indicate something important about who that person really is. Another tip is to make sure that you focus on the person who is receiving care and not just the care worker or the social worker. 

It was great to hear positive feedback from those who joined the master class session with many sharing their reflections and thoughts about how they could use storytelling in their work. 

Storytelling is not a “nice extra” in adult social care – it is a strategic tool for culture change, better commissioning, better co-production, and better system design. If we want people-centred systems, we must change how we communicate, and storytelling is central to that change. 

Interested in telling more stories in your place?  

• Regional branches can engage on storytelling – NW ADASS can share details on the agenda of our storytelling session if helpful and the national ADASS team have a free framing training that includes a section on storytelling (contact phoebe.kerr@adass.org.uk to discuss arranging a session). 

• Commissioners can think about embedding storytelling into commissioning and co-production. 

• Organisations can rethink how they use case studies in reports and engagement tools.