A school-based evaluation of Therapeutic Storytelling Intervention (TSI) to promote young people's mental health and wellbeing

Therapeutic storytelling intervention (TSI) is an innovative form of psychotherapy developed by Ron Phillips in 1989 based on his book “Gem of First Water” (Phillips, 1989). “Gem of First Water” is the story of a boy on a journey of discovery and adventure in a mythical land called ‘confusion’. Along the way the hero is faced with challenges and dilemmas that reflect the common adolescent struggles, such as poor impulse control, making connections between decisions and feeling, working through grief, drug and alcohol use and peer and parent relationship issues. TSI has now been developed as a class room intervention for young people and is currently being delivered in schools in South Auckland. The intervention involves 12 weekly sessions of TSI delivered to each selected class by a counsellor. Students will receive the book, a student workbook and the teacher will receive a talking book to allow for students to catchup any sessions they may have missed. The duration of TSI is approximately 30 minutes plus 30 minutes of discussion and workbook exercises. Week 1 - Introduction to the story, introduces elements of thoughts, feelings and behaviours, the golden rule. Week 2 - Discusses being stuck and change. Related these to thoughts, feelings and behaviours Week 3 - Mastering anger Week 4 - Honesty and forgiveness Week 5 - Self care and empathy for others, Mind triage Week 6 - Golden rule of relationships, Insight and knowing self. Week 7 - Courage, Deep decisions, Lessons in life. Week 8 - Relationship between decisions and feelings. Habit rule for managing life Week 9 - How bad choices evolve Week 10 - Model for facing fears Week 11 - Understanding who you are, Identity and who you are. Week 12 - Model of identity, Coming home. The workbooks contain a variety of exercises that gets students to reflect on aspects of the story and how relates to their lives. The workbook is divided in to chapters that relate to the chapters of the story. These exercises are designed to reinforce messages during the class sessions and some independent exercises for students that can be completed outside of the 12 weekly sessions. Teachers will receive a 2 hour training session before the intervention. Teachers are not expected to deliver the intervention themselves, but to support key messages in classes outside of the intervention sessions. Teachers will receive a copy of the story, workbook, and a summary of key messages and models delivered in the intervention sessions. Fidelity will be assessed by student attendance and completion of workbooks by a research assistant. Any issues will be identified through discussions and feedback from teachers and resolved in collaboration with the school and researchers.