2009 Teaching programme and booking forms
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November 2 - 6th
The focus of this intensive training is to provide an opportunity for practitioners from a range of fields including social work, psychology, and community work to explore narrative therapy approaches to their work. The Level 1 workshop will provide a sound base for those who are new to narrative practice as well as an opportunity to build on skills and understandings for people who have previous knowledge. The course will include explorations of:
- Key ideas of narrative therapy
- Locating narrative therapy in a context
- The narrative metaphor and how stories shape us
- A review of the micro maps of narrative therapy
- The role of externalising conversations with individuals, families and groups
- Re- Authoring conversations through rich story development
- Intentional understandings of identity
- Creating an audience for preferred story development
- The narrative approach in work with individuals, families, groups and communities
This intensive workshop will offer participants a thorough immersion in the application of the micro maps of narrative practice as described by Michael White. Maggie and Shona will use illustrations from their own work along with structured exercises and group discussion as a way of supporting participants to engage with narrative practice. The emphasis will be on developing skills in using the narrative approach and how this might apply in a variety of settings.
These intensives will have a maximum of 12 participants as we aim to foster a spirit of collaborative exploration in our teaching and to maximize opportunity for questions and discussion.
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August 3 - 7th
This 5 day intensive workshop is planned to provide opportunities for participants to extend on ideas and practices of narrative therapy they have gained through previous training. The features of this intensive include prioritizing the particular interests of participants which will actively shape the agenda of the intensive. There will be ongoing exploration of the skills of narrative therapy including
- Putting narrative ideas into practice through collaborative interviewing
- The use of letter writing and documents to support emerging stories
- Scaffolding the absent but implicit
- Elaborating on specific practices of the narrative approach
The focus of the intensive will be on the development of skills applicable in work with individuals, families, groups and communities. The teaching methodology will include live interviews, review of therapeutic conversations, sharing stories of work, gaining experience through structured exercises, descriptions of specific maps of narrative practice and group discussion. We hope to create a rigorous and lively learning experience where participants can further develop their ideas and skills in collaboration with others. There will be maximum of 12 participants.
Exploring Narrative Approaches to addressing men's violence.
2 Day Workshop
14 - 15 May 2009
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Working with men who engage in the use of violence has been a key focus of Rob Hall’s work over the past ... years. While informed by post structuralist and social constructionist ways of thinking Rob’s practice has been developed through his own therapeutic conversations with men. Maggie Carey and Shona Russell have both been practicing and teaching narrative skills for many years and have worked with women and children who have experienced violence.
One of the plans that Michael White had before his death was to bring some focus to the ways in which narrative practices could be supportive of practitioners who are involved in working with men who engage in violence. Narrative ways of working have a great deal to offer this area of work. In this series of workshops Rob, Shona and Maggie will bring together their different areas of experience to this project of focusing on the use of narrative practices in work with men who use violence and abuse.
Concepts of respect, accountability and responsibility have continued to shape the work of Rob Hall and his colleague Alan Jenkins as they have developed responses to the complexities of work with men who use violence in their relationships with women.
In this workshop there will be a chance to explore ways in which the maps of Narrative Practice might contribute to a rich account of this work. It is anticipated that this workshop will offer participants some stepping stones into many of the complexities of the work with men who use violence and abuse.
This 2 day workshop will be useful for a range of practitioners interested in working with men who engage in practices of violence and abuse. There will be a focus on some of the broader philosophical considerations of this work as well as skills development for practitioners engaged in therapeutic conversations with men.
In this workshop we will look at:
- The importance of engaging men and the skills involved in this.
- Providing men with an alternative territory of life and identity in which to stand, and from which to strongly critique their own abusive and exploitative actions.
- Scaffolding the development of respect, responsibility and accountability as concepts that are storied in experience and able to be put into action.
- Ways of inviting men to take a position that is not one of remaining complicit in the privileges afforded them through the discourses of masculinity that promote power over others.
- Shame as a point of entry for exploration of preferred identity accounts. What is 'absent but implicit' in the shame?
* The ethical position of the therapist in work with men. How do we not replicate the very practices that need addressing? How do we own the position that we are taking?
Developmental Workshops in responding to men's violence
As a precursor to the two-day workshop, a series of three short (3 hour) exploratory workshops will be held that will be developmental in nature. In each of these short workshops a different aspect of work with men will be linked to narrative practices that might particularly support a therapeutic response. These will be a combination of discussion between Shona, Rob and Maggie along with involvement of participants through exploration of narrative practices that might be useful in responding to particular aspects of work with men.
Thursday April 16th 2009 4.00pm-7.00pm
Topic One: Scaffolding conversational pathways with men.
- Supporting accounts of responsibility to take shape.
Tuesday April 21st 2009 4.00pm-7.00pm
Topic two: Practices of Accountability
- Exploring ways in which therapists can reflect upon their own values in this work.
- Being accountable to women's experience when working with men
- Formal and informal processes of accountability
Tuesday 28th 2009 April 4.00pm-7.00pm.
Topic three: Caring, fairness and respect - subordinate story line development
- Finding points of entry to stories of care, fairness and respect.
- Scaffolding rich accounts of these preferred stories that enable reflection on the use of violence.
- Inviting agency in regard to putting responsibility into practice.
These developmental workshops can be taken separately or in conjunction with the two day workshop.
Cost: $125 for three sessions.
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Responding to the effects of trauma and abuse in women’s lives.
2 day workshop
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30 - 31 July 2009
Many practitioners through their work with individuals, families and communities come face to face with the ongoing effects of trauma and abuse in the lives of women. In this 2 day workshop we will explore a range of narrative practices that provide opportunities for workers who are responding to trauma.
The agenda will include:
* Review of key ideas of the narrative approach when working with the effects of trauma
* locating practices of violence and abuse in social and historical contexts
* identifying responses to trauma
* intentional understandings of identity
* the absent but implicit as a gateway to rich story development
* skills in creating an audience for women’s stories
A focus of the workshop is on skills development through a range of structured exercises and discussion. Stories of work from a range of settings will be shared and participants will be encouraged to review the use of narrative ideas and practices in their particular contexts.
One day series – Maps of narrative practice.
Exploring the practices of narrative therapy in work with individuals, families and/or communities
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Commencing 11th March then monthly through to September (six meetings)
For the first time we are offering a one day series of six narrative practice workshops each with a specific topic. We hope this series will provide ample opportunity for participants to thoroughly explore various practices of narrative therapy in their work with individuals, families and communities.
This series is to provide skills training for therapists, counsellors, psychologists, social workers and health professionals in the micro maps of narrative therapy as described by Michael White in “ Maps of Narrative Practice”. Each one day workshop endeavours to build on participant’s interest by providing a detailed description of specific micro maps, opportunities to gain skills through structured exercises and discussion. Examples of work in a variety of settings will be shared.
- Exploring key ideas underpinning narrative therapy and the narrative metaphor
- The role of externalizing conversations
- Re- Authoring lives through rich story development
- Re- membering practices
- Creating audience for preferred stories – Definitional ceremony and Outsider Witness practices.
- The absent but implicit as a gateway to rich story development
Using narrative ideas in supervision
2 day workshop
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This workshop is for people in a supervisory role who are interested in using narrative practices to support the work of the people that they supervise. A range of roles and responsibilities related to supervision will be explored as well as ideas and practices that can enliven supervision. The workshop programme will include;
- Narrative approaches to supervision – options and possibilities.
- “Practices that reinvigorate our work”
- Intentional state inquiries – an exploration
- Exploring the “absent but implicit”
- The position we take as supervisors
- Supervision as a negotiated relationship.
- Re- storying professional identity through rich story development
- Creating audiences for re-storying professional identity