HonoringVoice: Embodied Avatar Performance for Children’s Mental Health
In collaboration with:
Gary S. Cuddeback, PhD, MSW, MPH –Interim Dean and Professor, Associate Dean for Research, VCU School of Social Work
Jarrod M. Leffler, PhD, ABPP –Chair, Division of Child and Adolescent Psychology, Associate Professor, VCU Department of Psychiatry, Virginia Treatment Center for Children
Honoring Voice is a virtual storytelling platform that allows children with trauma-related memories to create personalized narratives through avatars. Customizable avatars will enable embodied storytelling, facilitate role-playing performances and ultimately foster participants’ creativity, sense of community and personal meaning making for traumatic experiences.
The avatar platform was designed to help the participants to choose their own avatars on screen, reflecting multiple states of themselves or their family members, and to playfully act out, improvise, and imagine their memories through their avatars from a safe distance.
Research Assistants:
Megan Weseloh, Gabe McLeod
