SCHEDULE OF TRAINING FOR 2010

Extending Narrative Practice – small group intensive

February 8th - 12th. ===WORKSHOP FULL====

This five day intensive will be limited to 10 participants. The teaching will focus on participants having the opportunity to follow live interviews as a basis for extending their exploration of narrative practice. Suitable for practitioners who have completed introductory training in the narrative approach.

Exploring narrative approaches to counselling men who use violence and abuse - An Introduction.

Februrary 22nd and 23rd. Rob Hall.

In this workshop there will be a focus on:

• The conceptual ideas underpinning the work with men, on challenging explanations and on the politics of power relations.
• 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?
• 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.
• The centrality of the experiences of the people that have been hurt by the man’s use of violence.

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Level II Extending Narrative Practice

May 3rd - 7th. Shona Russell.

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.

Flyer coming soon.

Responding to the Effects of Trauma and Abuse in Women’s Lives

July 5th and 6th. Shona Russell & Maggie Carey.

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.

Flyer coming soon.

Extending narrative approaches to counselling men who use violence and abuse

July 7th - 9th. Rob Hall.

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Level 1 intensive – Introducing a Narrative Approach

August 9th - 13th. Shona Russell & Maggie Carey.

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.

Flyer coming soon.

Exploring Narrative Approaches to Supervision - 3 Day Workshop

September 8th, 9th, 10th, 2010. Shona Russell.

This three day skills based workshop has been designed for practitioners interested in narrative approaches to supervision. Narrative approaches offer many possibilities in supervision including a range of practices that re- invigorate professional identity, respectful ways of exploring complex concerns and challenges, and enlivening ways of creating an audience for the work people do.

Shona has a particular interest in supervision where workers experience significant distress in relation to their work and she will share examples of her work in a range of supervisory contexts. Participants will explore a range of practices that narrative practitioners find useful in working with colleagues and teams. There will be a specific focus on supervisory conversations with workers responding to violence, abuse and trauma in the context of injustice.

The following specific themes and practices will be explored:

• Negotiating supervision
• The position we take as supervisors
• Re-storying professional identity through rich story development
• The role of externalizing conversations in interrupting internalized accounts of professional identity
• The rites of passage metaphor as it relates to professional identity
• The absent but implicit
• Creating audiences for re- storying professional identity

Whether you are an experienced supervisor, new to supervision or interested in furthering your understanding of narrative approaches to supervision there will be something of interest for you!

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SCHEDULE OF TRAINING FOR 2011

Level 1 intensive – Introducing a Narrative Approach

February 7th - 11th 2011. Maggie Carey & Shona Russell.

Flyer coming soon.

Level 2 intensive - Extending Narrative Practice

February 14th - 18th 2011. Maggie Carey & Shona Russell.

Flyer coming soon.