KAREN LEWIS, Project Leader, StoryWorks

Karen leads the StoryWorks Unit, which is based at the Welsh Institute for Health and Social Care at the University of Glamorgan. She is also Associate Director of the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling, a research centre based in the University’s Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries. Karen joined the University in January 2009 primarily to establish StoryWorks – a unit that offers training and consultancy services to organisations interested in gathering and sharing the stories of patients , service users and staff.
  
Prior to joining the University , Karen spent ten years at the BBC, where she was the founder producer of the BBC’s Community Digital Storytelling Project, Capture Wales. This work was the result of an innovative partnership between BBC Wales and Cardiff University - and in its 7 years of activity  the project was awarded a BAFTA Cymru, The Welsh Development Agency award for Innovation, and Cardiff University’s prestigious Innovation Prize. Karen was also recipient of the Technology Wales  “ Woman in Technology” award for her contribution to the field of Digital Storytelling– much to the amusement of her team at the time as she could hardly be described as a technical whiz!
 
In her dim and distant past, Karen has been a teacher of English, Media and Drama; a Senior Practitioner in a Barnardos Community Arts project and Communications and Training Manager for The Special Needs Advisory Project in Wales.
 
Karen is  currently completing a Masters by Research degree - looking at the relationship between story and storyteller in breast cancer narratives.

LISA HELEDD JONES, Development Officer, StoryWorks

Lisa Heledd Jones is a Digital Storytelling Producer who has spent the last eight years involved in the creation and development of Digital Storytelling in Wales. Much of this time was spent working on the BBC's award winning Capture Wales project which facilitated over 800 stories in both English and Welsh and has helped foster over 50 new digital storytelling community based projects. 

Lisa is now working with the University of Glamorgan's StoryWorks project and has been developing storytelling endeavours with many different organisations and individuals; foster children and carers, cancer patients and people with dementia to name but a few of the groups she has worked with in the last twelve months. No matter what the organisation or project Lisa's passion is in facilitating and unlocking people's unheard voices and stories in the most relevant and sensitive way.

StoryWorks is supported by the Business and Administration team at WIHSC: Lisa Griffiths, Marina Roberts and Ceri Jenkins.

GILLY ADAMS, StoryWorks Associate

Gilly Adams is a workshop leader, director and editor who specialises in the development of text and scripts for story telling and performance. She pioneered and led the story circle element of Capture Wales, the BBC’s digital storytelling project which collected more than 800 stories from the community in Wales. Whilst working for BBC Wales she also produced radio plays and was Director of the Writers’ Unit. Previously she was the Artistic Director of the Made in Wales Stage Company for more than a decade.

Currently Gilly is working freelance in the areas of story telling and creative writing for radio and stage.

CARWYN EVANS, StoryWorks Associate

Carwyn Evans is a digital storytelling facilitator who's worked on many digital storytelling and participatory media projects, predominantly through BBC Capture Wales where he left as Assistant Producer in 2008. This award-winning bilingual social media project travelled across the length and breadth of Wales, for six years, facilitating active media participation through the form of workshops - the outcome of which being the production of over 800 two-minute digital stories created by storytellers of varying ages and backgrounds using their own personal testimony and archive. Carwyn's passion for social participation and personal narrative, its articulation and agency through various formats continues to develop through his work with StoryWorks.

TRACY PALLANT, StoryWorks Associate

Tracy Pallant is a digital storytelling facilitator and community filmmaker, working on Digital Storytelling Projects with Valley and Vale Community Arts, Breaking Barriers and StoryWorks. Having worked as an assistant editor and editor at the film unit at BBC Wales, she has since worked on a range of Wales-based community media projects for 15 years and has a strong involvement with with media projects abroad, such as Gem TV - a community film organisation in Ethiopia.

Tracy is passionate about working with groups and individuals to help enable them to tell and share their stories, and get their voices heard.

EWAN JONES MORRIS, StoryWorks Associate

Ewan Jones Morris is a filmmaker who has spent the last seven years working on a wide variety of projects ranging from documentary to music videos.

After a year making films with community groups in Sweden he co-directed a documentary, Brand New World (2005) exploring the contemporary relevance of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which was selected by a international documentary festivals in the UK, Norway and Poland. Since then he has worked on short films, music videos and promotional projects, including directing a short film through the It's My Shout scheme for broadcast by the BBC. His work has been shortlisted for the UK Music Video Awards and the SXSW film festival, and his short films won him a place at the Berlinale Talent Campus. Through his promotional video making he has worked with a variety of organisations and businesses including Techniquest, McArthurGlen, Samsonite and The Greenman Festival.

Most recently Ewan has co-directed a series of creative music videos for artists such The Human League, John Grant and DJ Shadow.

GEORGIE MEADOWS, StoryWorks Associate

Georgie spent many years as an Occupational Therapist, the last 14 working with elderly people with mental health problems, mainly dementia. She took a career break to do a full time Art Foundation Course in Hereford where she began to make images of elderly people.

Georgie has always felt that the importance of how we interpret what we see when caring for people is a neglected subject. She now uses her images to encourage the practice of “looking” in a reflective manner in an attempt to get a more accurate story and therefore better care. Georgie has used her images to teach Occupational Therapy students from Cardiff University and has exhibited her pictures in galleries in Wales and London.

EIRWEN MALIN, StoryWorks Associate

Drawing together many years of experience of working in the voluntary sector in Wales, a background in education, understanding of storytelling as performance and a strongly held belief in the power of story, Eirwen brings a very wide perspective to the use of story and narrative. Working with a number of local and all-Wales voluntary organisations, she has developed evidence based practice and policy across a range of issues and currently works part time for NIACE Dysgu Cymru (National Institute for Adult Continuing Education). Eirwen has an MSc in Social Science and a particular interest in qualitative research methods, her dissertation explored digital storytelling as a research method.

Eirwen’s freelance experience includes research, facilitation, and training, including the development of materials for use by others, and uses creative and narrative approaches in most of her work. Eirwen has worked with individuals, from varied backgrounds, and from many Anglophone countries around the world, to express their personal stories as digital stories, audio recordings and straightforward narrative. She is a fluent Welsh speaker.

STEVE KILLICK, StoryWorks Associate

Steve is  a Clinical Child Psychologist in the NHS and independently with interests in emotional literacy, positive psychology and creative approaches to therapy. He has a background in the performing arts and also works as a storyteller. He uses storytelling in his work as a psychologist and has written considerably on this subject.

His recent publications include ‘Telling Tales: Storytelling as Emotional Literacy’, written with Taffy Thomas,  and 'Emotional Literacy at the Heart of the School Ethos. He has also written and produced several training video films on child development and mental health. He is currently working on a collection of Indian folk tales and some research projects involving storytelling.

EMILY UNDERWOOD LEE, StoryWorks Associate

I am a performer and academic based in South Wales.  I create autobiographical work and am principally concerned with the construction of gender and how the female body can be presented and represented in performance.  My recent show, Patience, focuses on the post-operative body and draws on my own experience of motherhood and breast cancer. My new show, Titillation, is a humorous look at the post-operative body that considers who and what can be sexy after breast cancer.  I work as Research Assistant at the George Ewart Evans Centre for Storytelling at the University of Glamorgan, where I am also studying for a PhD titled "The Body Exposed: Strategies for confronting objectification in women's autobiographical performance".  I am a founder member of the Factory Floor creative network for women solo performers/writers.

emilyunderwoodlee. wordpress.com

MOLLY NAYLOR, StoryWorks Associate

Molly Naylor is a writer, performer, poet and theatre-maker. Her solo show, Whenever I Get Blown Up I Think Of You debuted at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2010 to critical acclaim, which proceeded an international tour. She was commissioned to write an audio adaptation of the show for BBC Radio 4, which was described by the Guardian as 'a brave, funny, tough and beautiful piece of writing'.

Her adaptation of the book of Malachi was staged at The Bush as part of Sixty-Six Books , published by Oberon. She has written for The Independent and her poems have been featured on BBC Radio and in publications including Rialto, The North, The Londonist and Pen Pusher.   She frequently performs and reads at festivals and events worldwide. Her first book - an illustrated text of her live show - is available from Nasty Little Press.

Molly also delivers workshops and lectures in creative writing, solo performance and poetry in education. She is currently developing a new show commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre.

www.mollynaylor.com

KATHERINE HUGHES, StoryWorks Associate

Katherine Hughes is a social scientist with over 30 years experience of working in local and central government, the private, voluntary and academic sectors. She was the director of the Welsh Consumer Council before setting up as a freelance consultant, with a focus on the community well-being agenda.  She is an Associate of the Welsh Institute of Health and Social Care, University of Glamorgan. As an active volunteer, she is Chair of Keep Wales Tidy, a Director of Planning Aid Wales, Secretary of the Caerphilly Miners Centre, a member of her local choir and GP practice patients’ committee.
 
Katherine’s experience of being diagnosed and treated for breast cancer in her ‘50s was traumatic.  She feared being isolated, ignored, and losing control of her life. Writing diary notes helped her to make sense of her situation, unlock the sense of guilt and anger, explore worries and look forward.  These provide the basis for her story, which combines personal experiences with researched information and creative writing to provide a toolkit for her own well-being, as well as material useful to other patients and insights for practitioners. This was Katherine’s first experience of writing creatively since school, but she now uses it regularly as a ‘well-being’ tool.

Read 'Achieving Wellbeing After Breast Cancer: A Survivor's Story' by Katherine Hughes

SIMON TURNER, StoryWorks Associate

Simon Turner is a composer, musician and audio specialist with a particular interest in real stories. His work has taken him across a variety of disciplines including radio, theatre, film, multi-media and the web. He has also written and produced many musical works for television, is a featured composer of the Cheltenham Music Festival, and co-wrote the Popular Music degree course at the University of Gloucestershire, on which he teaches audio and music production. He was a pivotal member of the BBC's Digital Storytelling team from their inception in 2001, which he worked on for 6 years, and continues to work as a composer and producer, as well as a continual involvement in storytelling projects both here and abroad.