1. Using Your Journey to Make a Difference
Presented by
Barbara Granger
Family Engagement Specialist
Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health, University of Texas
Co-Lead Texas Family Voice Network

2. Objectives
Discover the Steps to Using Your Voice Affectively
Looking for Ways to Share Your Story
Learning to Use the Highs and Lows of Your Personal Journey to Strengthen Your Influence

4. How The Journey Begins
From a Whisper to a Roar

6. My Personal Journey

7. Finding Your Voice Examine the expertise that comes from
personal experience—Know You’re are Ready
2. Learn ways to share your story
3. Begin learning self-care strategies to help you
prevent burnout.

8. “When we deny the story, it defines us
“When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can create a brave new ending.”
—Brene Brown

9. Knowing you are Ready Do you have a passion to make improvements?
When you hear a family’s struggle, do you want to share your experience to inspire hope?
Do you search for answers and solutions that will work for your family and others?
Are you often asked to help another family with their
circumstances?
Are you sometimes recognized for your successful
family outcomes?

10. Strategic Sharing
Taken from Children's Research Triangle (2015)

11. Using your voice effectively
1. Understand the characteristics of a
family leader
Use your voice to effectively
communicate and advocate for the
changes needed to support your family
and others toward successful outcomes.
Continue learning strategies that build your
leadership skills and influence.

12. A family leader is one who uses their personal lived experience to help guide and influence others on their journey.

13. What Defines a Family Leader?
You have a passion to make improvements.
When you hear a family's struggle, you want to share your experience to inspire hope.
You search for answers and solutions that will work for your family and others.
You often asked to help another family with their
circumstance.
You are sometimes recognized for your successful
family outcomes.

14. Stages of Family Leadership

15. If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
—John Quincy Adam

16. Advocating Tips Influence Change 3. Self-empowerment Reduce Stigma
1. Relationship Building
Sharing our experiences helps build relationships with each other and decreases the isolation so many of us have felt.
Influence Change
Stories influence public opinion and policy. They are so effective, news reporters and politicians search for people to put a face on stories and issues. Stories are remembered and can touch a heart, not just the mind.
3. Self-empowerment
Family leadership lifts us from shame and embarrassment to pride and empowerment!
Reduce Stigma
Sharing reduces stigma (when someone judges a person negatively based on a personal trait/experience) by normalizing our experiences and evaporating negative beliefs and presumptions.
5. Right for our Rights
Sharing empowers us to relay, negotiate, and assert our own goals, needs, and rights. It allows us to make informed decisions for our own families and shape the decisions made by professionals and in systems.

17. “This above all, to thine own self, be true.”
—William Shakespeare

18. Expanding Your Voice Define your advocacy skills to impact
reform within child-serving systems to
shape and affect policy and procedures.
2. Understand your personal limitations; set
boundaries to avoid compassion fatigue.

20. Look for Opportunities to Share Your Voice
Advocacy with local government
Participation in funding and resource decisions
Participation in staff hiring and training
Participation in program development
Participation in quality management and evaluation
Engaging other family members in leadership

21. Risks We Take Along the Way
1. Sharing remorse
Sharing remorse is wishing you hadn’t said so much or feeling like you were pushed to say more than you meant to share. Now you are worried about negative reactions, which do sometimes happen.
2. Judgement about your credibility
Sometimes people who listen to our stories may dismiss us as too “emotionally involved” and make assumptions that we can’t be objective or professional. Some people are not comfortable with emotion or stories, preferring “hard” facts and data. These judgments about credibility can affect working relationships, opportunities, and even jobs! Sometimes, it is a result of sharing too much Red Area information discussed earlier. Other times, it is because we misjudged a person’s interest or intentions in seeking out more information.
3. Being labeled
We all want to be respected for the experience, knowledge, and education we bring. When we share personal information, we risk being labeled or, as previously stated, considered “too emotional”. By sharing, we risk exposing we’re part of a group that has stigma attached to it in our society.
4. Painful memories
This impacts both us and whoever is listening. We may unintentionally bring up emotions we thought we had dealt with or may ignite memories we thought had been buried.
5. People only hear what they want
“People only hear what they want to hear” means they don’t always want to hear the entire story! Many just want the success story with the fairy tale happy ending, not the challenges associated with the journey.
6. Impact on family relationships
Keep in mind that what we share about members of our family affects them, too! In the age of social media and the internet, we must keep in mind that what we say could impact them personally today or later in life. Always discuss what you plan to share with those you are mentioning in your stories. Make sure you know what they are ok with and what they aren’t. Leave out personal names and pay attention to the impact of what you are sharing for you and them.
Taken from Foster Care Alumni (2006). Strategic Sharing.

22. To ensure we minimize these risks, we must be careful and targeted in what we choose to share, who we share with and how we relay the information.

23. Words of Advice for the Journey
Take the “fire in your belly” and use it purposefully
Gain knowledge and skills to serve as agents of change
Recognize your capacity to lead regardless of your designated position within your organization/setting
Develop strategies to sustain yourself as a
leader in chaotic, difficult and challenging environments
Make a commitment to your leadership role
Never underestimate the potential of your influence
Stephany Bryan, TX Family Leader, Austin

24. Making a Difference with Our Personal Journeys
requires
deliberate attention
dedicated resources, and
capacity building at
EVERY Level
to build an
effective
system.

25. Questions

26. Contact Information
Barbara Granger,
Family Engagement Specialist
Texas Institute for Excellence in Mental Health,
University of Texas
Phone: