We are qualified social workers, life story practitioners and therapists and we wrote the paper; What is Life Story Work? How defining approaches can bring clarity to research, training and practice.

We each have our own journey of what brought us to Life Story Work, but, for the last ten years we have collectively worked to develop the Life Story Work field by undertaking research, delivering training and providing Therapeutic Life Story work to hundreds of young people.

We’re passionate about getting Life Story Work right and using it effectively to support young people’s well-being and help them process past trauma. Over the years, we noticed that while Life Story Work was widely practiced, there were no overarching principles or guidelines defining its approaches. This lack of consistent terminology and clear distinctions between approaches makes it challenging to achieve a shared understanding, which can impact how Life Story Work support is allocated, how training is developed, and how effectively it’s implemented and evaluated.

After facing these challenges first-hand and reviewing the available literature, we developed five distinct approaches to Life Story Work to address these gaps. Our aim was to create a common language that could be applied across research, training, and practice. These approaches draw from our own practice experiences, examples from international research, and UK guidance on Life Story Work. Each approach incorporates key elements of existing Life Story Work practices, with the goal of bringing more clarity and consistency to this vital work.
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