DOCUMENTING STORIES OF CHANGE

I hear music when people share their stories. Discovering that their insights could lead me - and others - to new possibilities was the start of my documentation work.

 
 
 
 

Documentation gives busy changemakers the opportunity to:

  • Acknowledge and build upon successes

  • Identify challenge, questions and lessons learned

  • View themselves as decision makers and thinkers 

  • Reinforce that what they say and do matters

  • Deepen collaboration as they hear their own voices, 
    and the voices of others

  • Adopt and adapt insights and information shared by others

  • Create a shared and collective history of progress

  • Clarify steps in the path forward

Over three years, my role was to listen to, learn from and then share the voices of members of the family child care community in New York City to guide the professional development work of team members from the NYC Department of Education and Bank Street College of Education.   

What is Smart Start?

Amy is a gifted interviewer.  She has a unique way of not only listening but also probing people's ideas and memories to get at the very heart of a story.  The three monographs she wrote were immensely helpful in communicating the nuances of the work and key components that were helpful to those who might want to create something similar to Smart Start.  I have thought of her work often and still to this day share those monographs as part of the work I do now - 20 years later.

— Gerry Cobb,
Director of the Pritzker Children’s Initiative

Thanks to Amy’s skills of engaging people in thoughtful conversations and documenting their stories, these publications gained a new dimension and the research came to life.  Users of these materials now have the opportunity to “hear” and reflect upon not only the findings, but the experiences and insights of researchers at work - in their own words.

—Sara Vecchiotti, Ph.D., Esq., Former Vice President, Foundation for Child Development

Over three editions, I have had conversations with close to 100 service members and veterans, family members, practitioners and researchers whose stories of change and lessons learned are shared with student readers throughout.

Using her skills and insights, her compassion, and her ability to see the bigger picture, Amy has helped countless professionals engaging in or preparing for work with the military grasp the culture, challenges, and resilience that characterizes life for current or past military members and their families.

—Angela Pereira, PhD, MSW, LCSW-C; Colonel, United States Army, Retired; Co-author, Serving Military Families: Theories, Research, and Application (2023)