The PLUS ME Storytelling Center

Social support networks

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

This year, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, highlighted the high prevalence of loneliness as a pressing public health issue and called for efforts to facilitate social connection. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and related social upheaval, our team has found that the student, educator, and adult communities we work with are experiencing high levels of social isolation and poor mental health. In our decade of experience, this issue has a variety of causes including preoccupation with online life, unhealthy focus on technology and decreased attention spans. The low-income neighborhoods we serve work long hours which can leave less time and energy for conversation and connection. While these issues are not new, they have exponentially increased in the last two years. We have shifted our intended outcomes to fill this need by highlighting social connection, self-confidence, and self-awareness as a primary goal rather than steps to support college and career.

Our newly established PLUS ME Storytelling Center in Highland Park opened in June 2024. The inaugural programming calendar includes free workshops, events, and trainings that engage local community members in personal storytelling and provide volunteer opportunities for adults to motivate youth. Workshops will be in both English and Spanish that will allow us to serve a larger segment of the Northeast LA community. Our intention is to become a known and trusted place for self-reflection, making friends, and communing with neighbors. The events are inspired by the workshop curriculum we have developed over the last decade and pull from those activities and tools. One primary tool is the My Story Matters Journal which was developed as an introspective, story-building tool and won UCLA’s 2019 Social Enterprise Venture Competition. These 100-page personal narrative guides walk participants through identifying the characters, settings, struggles, accomplishments, and lessons that comprise their stories. After collectively establishing community agreements around communication and needs for a safe space, our team encourages guests to share their responses with each other over the course of each storytelling experience. We do this through 1:1 pair shares, group shares out loud, and anonymous gallery walks where responses are collected and read silently. We have also designed a more public series (A Night of Stories) in which we will highlight community storytellers quarterly.

Our vision is to establish The PLUS ME Storytelling Center as an evergreen resource for LA County. Angelenos will strengthen the mental wellness and social fabric of our city by activating the center as a place to connect with themselves and each other. The non-fiction personal narrative is at the heart of our work and offers a unique opportunity to highlight the real-life details of one’s lived experience within this highly imaginative and creative region. If our work is successful, Los Angeles County will be filled with people who better understand themselves, have the skills to communicate with others, and who’s experience at The PLUS ME Storytelling Center results in at least one new connection.

The workshop and event experiences are modeled after the programming we have provided in LA County for over ten years. We have conducted interviews and surveys with program participants over the last 5 years and are proud that 76% of people we serve reported an increase in their self-awareness, 80% expressed higher confidence, and 93% recommended their peers participate in the program. On the volunteer side, 94% of volunteers reported they were able to connect with youth and 81% shared that they met and felt connected with other volunteers during the experience. The PLUS ME Storytelling Center is expected to make a similar impact and we will survey participants in this first year of programming. Since the goal of this space is connection, we will also measure whether guests developed any new relationships thanks to their experiences at the center and if they are still in contact. Data will be reviewed at the end of the calendar year in order to inform programming the following year.