Kevin & Margaret Hines Storytelling Academy

Program Description

Suicide is the leading cause of death among young people aged 10-24 in the United States. Kevin Hines knows this statistic better than anyone. At 19 years of age, he became 1 of over 2,000 people who attempted suicide by jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge, and was among the 1% of survivors. Kevin now speaks all over the world sharing his story as a message of hope and a means of suicide prevention. More deliberate, innovative, and relevant programming is needed to eradicate suicide. Kevin and his wife Margaret formed the Kevin and Margaret Hines Foundation (KMHF) to develop programming that addresses this need. Kevin & Margaret Hines Storytelling Academy (KMHSA) is a component of this foundation and it champions brain health and wellness through storytelling. The KMHSA exists as a workshop business retreat model, which is evaluated based on a Retrospective-pre/post Likert Scale. The objective of the KMHSA is for participants to enhance their public speaking skills, strategic sharing skills, and abilities to promote their own engagements. Not only do participants receive training with Kevin, but also with Lacy Dicharry,MS MBA. Lacy has 15 years experience conducting trainings for strategic sharing and the Trauma Informed Method of Engagement.

Creativity

KMHSA will encourage individuals with lived-experience and other stakeholders to collaborate to gain knowledge and enhance their skills in public speaking, strategic sharing, and promotion of engagements. Kevin Hines begins the workshop, in which he discusses his lessons learned through his storytelling experience, importance of humor in storytelling, and how to increase participants’ capacity for advocacy. Lacy Dicharry then trains individuals on aspects of strategic sharing including: Overview, Wanting to Share, Benefits and Risks, Targeting the Task, Being Strategic, Bio, and Final Product. Individuals will learn to offer hope, recovery, and conduct specific storytelling campaigns. They will also learn that the combination of narrative storytelling and mass media produces the greatest help-seeking behaviors and stigma reduction for suicide prevention utilizing the Papageno Effect. It is named after the 18th-century opera: The Magic Flute. Papageno was contemplating suicide until other characters showed him a different way to resolve his problems.

Leadership

KMHSA works in partnership with CNQR, a global lived-expertise movement supported through the Kevin & Margaret Hines Foundation. The CNQR Collective, a group of experts and leading advocates in the mental health, wellness, and suicide prevention space, have already received coaching from Kevin Hines and Lacy Dicharry. The CNQR Collective members typically are founders of their own organizations, and indicate that KMHSA increased their capacity for storytelling and strategic sharing. Kevin and Lacy have also supported and coached other leading advocates for events such as the VOICE Awards, Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, International Foster Care Organization Conferences, and other state, national, and international conferences and events. This leadership has also extended this academy to Team Ripple, people featured in the “Suicide: The Ripple Effect Academy” and Screening Captains wanting to utilize storytelling to host screenings and conversations in their communities. KMHSA is also available upon request by any organization.

Sustainability

KMHSA utilizes the goal that training more people in strategic sharing will further sustain suicide prevention efforts. Kevin has an incredible story that creates an impact on individuals. He receives weekly notes from people that hearing his story has saved his/her life. KMHSA wants to utilize what Kevin has learned, and expand Kevin’s ability to increase the capacity of others to share their own strengthening stories. Initially, this sponsored training at no cost to participants (outside of travel fees) and would allow video footage to translate this to online content in order to expand the access and availability of the information. Ongoing sustainability will be supported by requests from organizations to provide onsite training for a fee. The efforts of this program will be sustained through this training of other organizations in their ability to continue training their members. To provide community by-in, KMHSA will also offer CEUs to participants.

Replicability

Currently, our KMHSA is offered as a one-day, live, in-person training. This training is available upon request for agencies wishing to increase the capacity of advocates and storytellers whom they support. We would like to translate our content to an online course that would allow on-demand access to participants unable to attend an in-person training. Following the goal of this program, it is intended that trainees will be able to further their own strategic sharing. Once individuals have received the initial training, whether it is in-person or online, they will have the opportunity to participate in a train-the-trainers workshop. This workshop would train individuals to implement the KMHSA core program objectives. At that point, trained facilitators would contract with KMHSA to provide workshops in their own communities.

Results/Outcomes

Research from outside of the suicide prevention community describes storytelling’s ability to have an impact on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. KMHSA ran paired sample t-tests to evaluate for likelihood of probability for significance due to Kevin’s storytelling workshops. Initial findings of pre-post evaluations on Kevin’s “Cracked Not Broken” presentations show that there is a significant difference for participants who hear Kevin’s story based on the results regarding the individual’s ability and confidence in handling their own mental health issues and their confidence in supporting peers. KMHSA proposes that storytelling, whether it is disseminated in-person, by video, social media, or other outlets has the potential to save lives. We wish to prove it has the ability to change attitudes and beliefs and ultimately lead to a decrease in suicide risk by encouraging help-seeking behavior, reaching out to others, and most importantly demonstrate that hope is real and recovery is possible.