Caregiver Amanda Knowles MBE and care experienced Rosie Canning Author and Doctoral Researcher are seeking support to fund this unique ANNUAL EVENT.

There are a lot of care-experienced people who want to share their stories, for all sorts of reasons. Personal, therapeutic, for family, for history and publication. Your Life Your Story brings care experienced adults and caregivers with literary aspirations together with published authors, artists and poets to reflect and learn the art of storytelling in a therapeutically supported environment.

A life story is written in pencil, not ink and can be rubbed out and changed. You’re both the narrator and the main character of your story. Even if it is a terrible story, which is hard to share; the act of sharing, writing and rewriting gives a new realisation and possible resolution. That awful sense of being unable to change what went before can suddenly be lifted. For example, a simple act of changing point of view, can suddenly release a narrator and give them a distance and freedom to write their story.

We can take control of our narratives – our stories, by how they are told, what’s included, what’s left out. We can change the ‘single story’, the single narrative. And the truly exciting thing about this is that you can put out a new version of yourself and live your way into it - Rosie Canning

The first Your Life Your Story was during Care Leavers Week 2017 brought together 3 published authors and14 care-experienced adults with an age range from 18-59. They were, “extraordinary, and courageous people”... and much more. Inspiring and inspirational. Warm and funny. Resilient. Beautiful human beings giving to the world and living truly exceptional lives.

MOMENTS..... A young man who didn’t want to hold a pen, let alone write his story, transformed into a confident person who stood up and read out his writing. Watching people change their ‘I’ into ‘he’ or ‘she’, third person narratives and finding their voices and freedom from their pasts. Hearing a woman and mother, give herself the words that meant she finally found the words to write about her inability to honour her mother’s tragic death. Seeing a man doodling his thoughts and feelings suddenly break through to write his first book.

Your Life Your Story 2018. The story starts now and is written in chalk not ink. Changing the narrative.....