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On Tuesday 22 September, Dr Karen Treisman MBE will lead a Live Classroom on life story work in asylum-seeking and refugee contexts. She will explain the benefits of using creative approaches, and introduce some activities and practical ideas to support life story work.
Find out more about Karen’s Live Classroom, and book your ticket here>>
Here, Karen gives an introduction to the benefits of using creative approaches to life story work when we’re working alongside children seeking asylum or those from refugee backgrounds.
Life story work is about far more than creating a timeline or recording significant events.
At its heart, it is about helping people explore who they are, what has shaped them, who and what matters to them, where they belong, and the hopes, dreams and aspirations they carry into the future. It also supports meaning-making, sense-making, and having opportunities to integrate and to process.
Life story work can help us to develop a more enriched and compassionate narrative; one which honours not only challenges, adversity and unanswered questions, but also culture, relationships, strengths, interests, values, moments of joy and hopes for the future.
It invites us to widen the lens, ensuring that children and teens are not defined solely by the most difficult chapters of their lives.
Creative and expressive approaches are one of many ways we can support this.
Creative approaches can enrich direct work across many contexts.
However, when working alongside children seeking asylum or those from refugee backgrounds, there can be additional considerations that influence how we plan activities, choose materials and create opportunities for reflection, connection and conversation.
Every child’s story is unique. Whilst remaining curious about experiences that may include displacement, separation, uncertainty, changing family roles, different languages and cultures, and experiences of loss, it is equally important that we avoid assumptions. Instead, our work should seek to respectfully honour each child’s identity, culture, relationships, strengths, embodied experiences and aspirations.
Sometimes a thoughtfully chosen creative activity can offer a different doorway into conversations about identity, belonging, relationships and experiences.
Creative resources can be incredibly powerful, but they are only one part of the picture. It is how we bring ourselves into the interaction; our curiosity, presence, relationships, flexibility, creativity and reflection.
This September, I am very pleased to be delivering a half-day spotlight workshop with Creative Life Story Work. Given the time available, this will be an introduction rather than a comprehensive exploration of a creative life story work approach within asylum-seeking and refugee contexts.
The workshop is designed to complement practitioners’ existing knowledge and skills by spotlighting a small collection of adaptable creative and expressive activities that can be thoughtfully infused into direct work.
Together, we will explore practical ideas to support conversations around identity, belonging, relationships and experiences, whilst considering how these activities can be sensitively adapted for different children, teens, and contexts.
My hope is that people leave not with a complete toolkit, which would not be possible in a half-day workshop but with a handful of adaptable ideas, fresh inspiration and greater confidence to creatively enrich the life story work they are already doing.
Thank you Karen for this insight into your forthcoming Live Classroom!
Tuesday 22 September 2026, 9.30am – 12.30pm
Online
Dr Karen Treisman’s half-day webinar focuses on creative, relational activities you can use with children and young people in asylum-seeking and refugee contexts.
You can listen to our conversation with Dr Karen Treisman MBE in this episode of the Creative Life Story Work podcast.
Dr Karen Treisman MBE is a clinical psychologist, founder of Safe Hands and Thinking Minds, and an internationally recognised trainer, consultant and author of numerous books and therapeutic card sets.
