Meet Debra - Fireflies Healing & Teaching Storytelling
Painting Credit: David Borden
"The time will come when we will see the flower before the seed." - Ernest Holmes
Hello,
My name is Debra, and I visualize the bud within each child in full blossom, and believe in each child’s potential to sow seeds of love, kindness, creativity, and generosity in the world. I have been a storyteller since my children were young, and I have worked with children as a healer, a teacher and an artist for over 30 years.
Fireflies seeks to help elders experience appreciation and validation for their wisdom and life experiences through promoting the ancient practice of intergenerational storytelling. Fireflies works with elders in senior communities to help them shape stories of their lives, and creates opportunities to facilitate the sharing of these stories with children.
As a school social worker in inner city Minneapolis schools for many years, in my work with elders and as a grief counselor, I was left with two lasting impressions; the need to reach children early in their lives to build confidence and offer support, and the need to validate the life experiences of elders. Many of the children, families and elders I encountered were in personal, social, economic and discriminatory pain. Over the course of my life, I have desired to to combine my background in the arts with healing for children and elders. “Fireflies Healing Storytelling” is my chosen path to do so.
I studied reminiscence therapy with elders, a form of healing storytelling, intensively through my graduate school program. Reminiscence therapy offers an opportunity for elders to share their life stories with others and enhances human connection for them. I frequently practiced listening to, and encouraging the telling of stories in my work as a social worker in a long-term care setting and as a grief counselor.
I had my own business incorporating creative dance, drama and storytelling with children. Yet, something was missing for me. One day when I was volunteering in a school, I told a calming, positive story to soothe a young girl who had lived through the recent terrifying destruction of her apartment home during a huge tornado that hit north Minneapolis. I began to see how story can help to heal and sooth traumatic experiences in a gentle way.
I have a Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW) L.I.S.W., with a B.S. in Theatre Arts. I am associated with the international non-profit; Healing Story Alliance. I am a storyteller, a writer, a poet and a dancer. I believe that storytelling can be fun as well as healing. When I work with children and elders directly, I weave interactive movement, song and poetry into my storytelling. There is a unique place and context for every individual story told: