Community Works introduced At the Heart of the Matter in the spring of  2014. The storytelling approach we use is guided by the approach introduced by Story Center in the 1990's (formerly known as Center for Digital Storytelling) storycentre.org . Since then, it has found its way into many fields in North America and internationally. It has been used as a transformative resource by social service and health providers, educators, oral history researchers, and groups that are committed to building community and to social, environmental, and political change. 

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Digital storytelling has been particularly valuable for storytellers from communities that have been marginalized because of poverty, culture and race, histories of violence and oppression, gender, and disability, It provides storytellers with the space and the tools with which to tell their stories in new ways and to amplify their story voices.

But it is for storytellers of all ages and from all backgrounds. For all of us carry stories: of joy and sorrow; of the challenges we have met or are in the process of addressing; of life transitions and decisive moments; of discovery and recovery; of displacement and resettlement; of injustices and of our efforts to heal ourselves and our world from injustice…..

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In At the Heart of the Matter workshops, Community Works facilitators offer a safe and respectful storytelling space where participants can take time to listen deeply to themselves and others, and where they can learn that it is most often our stories that best guide and nourish us - not the stories that come out of our media-saturated, consumer-driven world;