BACKGROUND:
Storytelling is a powerful tool that helps us connect with our audience, get our message across, and disseminate public health knowledge to governments, communities, and civil society. Stories help us understand, make sense of the world, remember, empathize, and engage; they’ve also been found to have positive changes in health-promoting behaviours.1 In public health, misinformation is a growing concern. We must be able to capture attention and communicate credible information to audiences who have different backgrounds, world views, and preferences. Storytelling is valuable to all of us; however, it’s not something many of us are trained in.

METHODS:
This abbreviated storytelling workshop will teach participants how to develop a compelling narrative. In this highly interactive 1-hour session, participants will: • Discuss the neuroscience behind storytelling • Watch a live story performance and analyze it as a group • Identify the four ingredients of a compelling story in their own work • Choose between a story-structuring or metaphor activity • Discuss strategies to address misinformation in health The facilitator is a South African Canadian storyteller and spoken word poet who has a clinical and research background, including a public health degree.

RESULTS:
Participants will leave energized and with strategies that can be used to develop any story. This workshop is based on years of storytelling and knowledge translation work. Similar workshops have been conducted with organizations globally, recently with the University of Cape Town Office for Postgraduate Studies and Researcher Development.2 Past sessions have received positive feedback, including this comment from a university in London: “The workshop was brilliant! I absolutely loved the engaging style. It was full of tips that have helped me with storytelling since.”

CONCLUSIONS:
Storytelling helps us share messages audiences will understand and remember; storytelling is an essential skill for public health professionals.