Preparing the next generation – Innovations

Friday Afternoon Videos continues a Dulwich Centre tradition:

From 1983 onwards, Dulwich Centre was known for holding free events on Friday afternoons. These ‘Friday Afternoons at Dulwich’ would begin at 4.30pm so that people dropped by on their way home after the working week. They always consisted of a good speaker sharing some aspect of their practice that was currently intriguing and challenging to them and this was then followed by discussion and drinks! Now, every second month, on the Friday afternoon we are placing up on this website a video, maybe an audio recording, or a link to something very interesting. Of course, you can view this wherever you are in the world at a time that suits you, and then contribute to the discussion and debate. We are delighted that this new momentum of online discussion is continuing the ‘Friday Afternoons at Dulwich’ tradition.

To review the extensive archive of free videos, click here. Dulwich Centre welcomes topic suggestions here  and are in the process of looking into translating the transcripts of Friday Afternoons into a range of other languages.

Narrative Therapy India has introduced a new interview series, as a way to bear witness to and archive the unfolding of Narrative Ideas and Practices in an individual’s journey. Their first guest to the series is Dr. Vibha Krishnamurthy, a Developmental Paediatrician and Founder & Medical Director of Ummeed Child Development Center.

She is also a great proponent of Family Centered Care, a philosophy which runs through all of Ummeed’s work, which has helped in building an ecosystem for the development of children with disabilities.

Re-authoring Teaching offers a different approach to training.   We purposely schedule Our Workshops with days in between to allow space for restoration:  kayaking, hiking, cycling, swimming, sharing meals, yoga by lakeside watching glorious sunsets and hanging out talking on lake-side verandas. Many people who come to our  Vermont workshops stay for the entire week in cottage rentals on Lake Champlain. These cottages soon become filled with a blend of consultation groups, individuals, couples and families from around the world. Over the years, this experience of shared living by the lake has affectionately taken on the name, Narrative Camp. Visitors to Narrative Camp have come from India, Belgium, Russia, Spain, Australia, New Zealand – as well as from across Canada and the USA.  Watch this brief youtube that captures the spirit of Narrative Camp 2017.

The Collab Salon is a monthly webinar when online faculty and members from around the world meet together informally in real time. Our “meetings on a cloud” always occur at 5pm (New York time) on the third Sunday of the month, and each Salon we focus on a different theme as a starter dough for invigorating conversation. Sometimes we feature our Narrative Faculty as presenters and at other times we come together as equals around a particular shared interest area.  Our meetings last about an hour (sometimes a bit longer, but usually not more than 1-1/2 hours). Events are recorded, and then become available on-demand afterwards to all Collab Salon members including anyone not able to join in real time. All members can participate in a Google Group –  to share not only reflections and follow-up materials, but our innovations and projects with each other.

The Intern Pomo Group provides a group consultation experience for pre-licensed therapists and counselors interested in postmodern (narrative, solution-focused) conversation and practice. Meeting live online for six consecutive weeks, this group grew out of Charley’s experience facilitating in-person groups for interns in his private practice over the past several years. Intended to engage conversations that enrich participants’ unique experiences, both personally and professionally, the Intern Pomo Group is a space for collaborative connection and learning in a supportive, postmodern setting.

Case stories or teaching tales are widespread in every professional jurisdiction. They provide for something other than maps or manuals. They are primarily an oral literature that circulate in any profession from senior to junior, from peer to peer. They embody far more than the formalized and canonical ‘rules and regulations’ of manuals and the far more informal ‘map’ which proposes how you get from one place to another and what considerations you might have to keep in mind as you go. Case stories intend to do far more than either and perhaps can be best distinguished as providing the listener/reader with a sense of having been there.

David Epston

Collab Salon: Exemplary Tales- part one with David Epston, Travis Heath, Kay Ingamells, Sasha Pilkington

The Journal of Narrative Family Therapy will be sponsoring “Spirit of Adventure” conferences intended to highlight innovative narrative work that is taking place in communities around the world by agencies that work in the front lines (so to speak) often with very little resources. They will be co-sponsoring these conferences with the local agency in hopes that it will benefit them in terms of visibility but also help raise funds for the important work that they do – something akin to a benefit concert.  The first conference will be in Calgary on March 15-16 and will highlight the work of the Calgary Women’s Health Collective.