The stories we tell: supporting young mothers’ positive identity through personal narrative performance

Personal stories can have the power to form new narratives where negative assumptions dominate. This paper celebrates the voices of a group of young mothers who participated in a community/school programme informed by performance making. The process consisted of a series of workshops devised in collaboration with the participants. The findings share a positive experience that generated poetic responses to the challenges of being a young parent. We describe the creative process that position the group as experts in their own lives as they consider their value and identity as caregivers and capable young women, staging new contemporary identities.