LPA’s Tips and Tools for Youth Advocates
supporting the next generation of change-makers as you move forward on The Advocate’s Journey.
Jacob’s Story
When Jacob Smith was a high school junior in Whitehouse, Texas, he was active in debate and Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), where he learned about advocacy. But his advocacy wasn’t personal—until one April night.
Returning from an FCCLA conference, Jacob and his classmates were hit head-on by a truck going the wrong way. He suffered severe spinal, facial and brain injuries and was told he might never walk again. After months of intensive care and therapy, he was determined to recover.
During his healing, Jacob realized his story could raise awareness about road safety. The truck driver had been distracted and had two prior DUI convictions. Jacob thought of others who might suffer like he did and made a choice: to get better and help others make safe decisions.
Two years later, he began speaking at schools and churches, sharing his story. But he soon felt something was missing. He remembers, “People would invite me to speak and say, ‘We want you to come tell your story.’ And at first, that’s just what I did. I would tell what I was like before the crash, then jump to the crash, and then finish with how I am now. It was just my story of being in the crash, from beginning to end. People felt bad about what happened to me, but there was nothing that made me feel like I was doing anything to help them. So, that made me stop speaking and take a break to regroup.”
During his break, Jacob thought a lot about his role as an advocate. He said, “I started to question myself: Why am I telling my story? Why do people want me to tell my story? Who am I telling my story for? I came to the realization that this had to be about more than just me and the crash.”
What Jacob realized was that what he needed to do with his advocacy was to FOCUS IT—which is the first key to telling your story to drive change.
Your storytelling becomes Storytelling for ACTION when it becomes FOCUSED.
Why Focusing is Key
Remember that Storytelling for ACTION means that you want your listeners to be more than just be engaged with your story or interested in your story or even entertained by your story; you want them to be MOTIVATED TO DO SOMETHING that will help bring about positive change.
That’s exactly what Jacob realized. He wanted listeners to remember more than the fact that he was in an awful crash, suffered terrible injuries and regained his health. He wanted them to help DO SOMETHING about road safety—like asking whoever is driving the car you’re riding in not to look at their phone or text while they’re at the wheel.
Like Jacob, your advocacy will become stronger the more you focus it—when you step back and ask: “What am I trying to do? Who do I want to reach? What do I want to say?
Your storytelling becomes Storytelling for ACTION when it focuses on these three things:
Your goal: what you want to see happen.
Your audience: who you want to reach.
Your messages: what you want people to take away from hearing your stories.
In our next post, we’ll take a look at each.