NC-YVPC staff created the Survivor Expression & Empowerment through Interactive Theater (SEE-IT) program. Using interactive theater and improvisation techniques, we bring youth together to create and act out narratives about characters who have experienced adverse childhood experiences like bullying or teen dating conflicts. Youth create the stories about characters, not their own personal experiences, and work through how the story should unfold. Working through different ways to resolve the story encourages coping strategies and allows youth a safe place to find support from one another. This is another creative way to engage youth and build resilience while not directly addressing their traumatic past experiences. We begin and finish these events with information about how youth can contact social workers on our staff for deeper discussion (i.e., mental health treatment).
A SEE-IT workshop is implemented in the following steps:
1. Introduce concepts and psychoeducation, (i.e., 4 types of bullying or power and control in dating relationships).
2. Engage participants for ideas for characters.
3. Act out initial scene establishing context.
4. Feedback from participants.
5. Scene 2 presents conflict (e.g., bullying occurs, dating argument).
6. Feedback from participants on where story goes next.
7. Scene 3, conflict escalates.
8. Feedback from participants on where story goes next.
9. Scene 4 consequences of conflict.
10. Feedback from participants on how the conflict can be resolved, what else could happen?
11. Act out ending or alternative endings.
12. Discussion with actors out of role and group reactions.
Student surveys after the SEE-IT workshops have rendered the following results:
- 89% of students strongly agreed or agreed that they liked the workshop.
- 80% strongly agreed or agreed that students were involved in the workshop.
- 85% said they strongly agreed or agreed that SEE-IT showed ways to solve problems.
- 84% said SEE-IT showed them ways to handle conflict.