Photovoice Project combines photography, advocacy

Kent Becker, right, explains the Photovoice technique to fellow College of Education faculty member Jeasik Cho.

Representative Photovoice projects are on display in the Wyoming Union gallery.

   Helping young people and parents tell their stories through the camera lens, and using those stories to raise public awareness of children's mental health issues, is the dual goal of an innovative University of Wyoming research project.
    The Wyoming SAGE Photovoice Project, led by Associate Professor of Counselor Education Kent Becker, is an initiative of the Wyoming SAGE (Support, Access, Growth, and Empowerment) System of Care, funded by a six-year system of care grant from the United States Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration.
   The project uses Photovoice, a technique that "combines equal parts photography, research, group process, storytelling, social action, and development of awareness of personal and community issues." 
   Participants in the Wyoming SAGE Photovoice Project work through a multi-week process that begins with basic photography lessons and concludes with personalized displays featuring photos and narratives that describe their experiences.
   The Wyoming SAGE project begins with the premise that the young people who have lived at the edges of what schools and society deem normal are best able to explain their experiences. Some have lived in foster care. Some have been placed in institutions designed to serve troubled youth. Many have struggled in school.
   "Many of these youths have had more than their share of experiences living in a box, or being put within a box what's expected, what are the norms, what does society say is okay and not okay," Becker says. "Many have been the recipients of a fair amount of trauma, and they have safety and trust challenges. For them to really do well in life, to fully meet their potential, the boxes are too confining."
   Being able to tell those stories without someone else's interpretation is critical, according to Karen Robertson, a doctoral candidate who is completing a dissertation based on a portion of the SAGE project.
    "So often, we are prescribing how others should perceive/feel/think about something," she says. "We don't really allow the creative, powerful part of each individual to emerge. Photovoice allows that to occur."
   Living under labels assigned to them by others is a major challenge for many of the youth participants, according to Becker.
 "They tend to be stereotyped and stigmatized often in school as troublemakers or loners," he says. "Some have been in the system for awhile, and sometimes not succeeded based on those external rules."
   Participation in the Photovoice Project provides these young people with alternative roles, mostly unfamiliar to them: photographers and storytellers, team members and researchers, and social activists and leaders.
   For some of the young adults who participated in the project, the "social activist" role comes to life, as they participate in public presentations and forums, where they have opportunities to share their stories with community members and policy makers. Some also will join Becker for presentations at national conferences. One of those conferences includes youths and parents interested in public education and policy change. Introducing Photovoice as a powerful advocacy tool, and helping to bring it to other communities, is a potential outcome of this national outreach by Wyoming project participants.
   Member presentations to professional and community groups are part of a broader secondary goal of the SAGE Photovoice Project: raising public awareness, increasing community participation, and effecting change in public policy impacting children's mental health services, Becker says.  For example, representative profiles were displayed during the 2008 Wyoming Legislature, offering rich opportunities to provide policymakers with different ways to view children's mental health challenges.
   Participants experience the transformative power of being able to find and use new ways to share what they have experienced, giving them new tools for coping and succeeding in life.
   "If you can teach a child to reach out in some way, and communicate what they've been through, you've taught them a healthy way of dealing with life's hard issues," Robertson says.  "Hopefully, they will learn that that is how you can deal with a lot of hard stuff, rather than through addiction or violence."
   For more information on the Wyoming SAGE Photovoice Project, or to view sample projects, visit the project website at: http://www.photovoicewyoming.com.

 

Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008