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Storytelling: How to tell the story of your work

Storytelling is a powerful knowledge-sharing tool that helps you connect with your audience, get your message across, and be memorable - at conferences, retreats, meetings, and anywhere you speak about your work. It helps you describe the impact of your work to funders and the public, or develop knowledge translation products, such as videos.

This six-hour storytelling workshop takes participants on a journey, from understanding how our brains respond to stories, to learning how to develop a strong and captivating story using The 6-Step Story Planning Template©.

A person presenting in a conference room with a slide titled 'Why are stories important?' listing benefits such as making sense of the world, understanding, remembering, empathizing, and engaging. Another person is seated in the foreground, facing the presenter.

Join the next Storytelling workshop

The upcoming online Storytelling workshop is scheduled for May 2026! The online registration portal opens about two months before the workshop. We email the registration link to everyone on our email communication list.

Join our mailing list and get notified about upcoming sessions

Audience

This workshop is for anyone who wants to tell a story about their work, including:

Knowledge translation practitioners (knowledge brokers, KT specialists)
Researchers
Research staff
Communications specialists
Policy analysts
Educators
Clinicians
Students

Learning objectives

During this workshop, participants will:

Explore the art of storytelling as a method to communicate their work, engage others, and inspire action
Examine real examples of stories that have been developed based on scientific projects and annual reports
Debunk five myths of science storytelling
Learn how to prepare, structure, and tell a story well
Discuss the importance of considering/measuring a story’s impact
Be inspired to use storytelling for professional communication

Upcoming sessions

May 2026 (online)
- Time: 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. EST
November 2026 (in-person)

Fees

Online workshop

$300 CAD
$150 CAD for SickKids staff, students, and volunteers with badge access
Includes: The 6-Step Story Planning Template©, Certificate of completion

In-person workshop

$350 CAD
$200 CAD for SickKids staff, students, and volunteers with badge access
Includes: The 6-Step Story Planning Template©, Certificate of completion, lunch and refreshments

Renira Narrandes, MA, M.Sc.(OT), MPH

Renira is a storyteller, spoken word artist and knowledge translation specialist who has performed in North America, Europe, on TV, in podcasts and at academic conferences and events. She has a background in journalism (MA 2008), occupational therapy (M.Sc. OT 2011) and public health (MPH 2015) and has trained hundreds of clinicians, researchers, people living with conditions and others on how to tell stories. Renira is the Knowledge Translation Program Manager at SickKids and is excited to add her storytelling workshops to the program.