Over the past decade, many initiatives in Narrative Coaching, Organizational and Community work have been further developing. We will share a few illustrations. What would you like to add?
Re-Uniting Generations: The experience of work with people whose families suffered from repressions
The Great Terror repressions in Russia in the thirties of the previous century took lives of many people, destroyed families, created the atmosphere of shame, fear and helplessness in the society. Two generations later, we are still tracing the signs of the Great Terror in our lives – fear of authorities, fear of standing out, screaming silence around attempts to discuss those events. As insiders and narrative practitioners, we decided to make the first step towards preferred family stories, towards speaking out, towards reuniting with our ancestors. We hosted a meeting for those whose families were, like ours, affected by Stalin repressions. We relied on the narrative means of working with trauma, outsider witness practices and created a collective document in the end. This meeting became a meaningful event in the participants lives, and we would like to continue and share this work.
September 2017 Collab Salon: Anna Silnitskaya & Maria Tiunova (Moscow, Russia)
Narrative community work in Burundi, Africa: Working with orphaned children and teaching narrative ways to their caregivers.
The work of narrative practitioners in developing countries has challenges not usually encountered in the developed world where many of us work. The needs of developing countries, such as Burundi, are enormous, and the challenges in providing support are sometimes unexpected. In this presentation on our narrative project in Burundi the four presenters hoped; first, to inspire others who might want to do this kind of work in developing countries with special needs; second, to inform narrative practitioners interested in doing this work; and third, to describe some of the challenges faced and the special knowledges gained of how to create awareness when doing this kind of work. Our experiences of trying to provide support for these children, and the teaching and training of caregivers who were learning narrative practices will also be described in this Collab Salon.
December 2017 Collab Salon: Marcel Rachid, Karine Parello-Plesner, Carlin Moxley-Haegert and Linda Moxley-Haegert
Narrative Coaching: two presentations from France
Our first presentation is by Pierre Blanc-Sahnoun. As a coach and HR consultant, Pierre works with narrative ideas in the profit and non profit organizations around the themes of corporate identities, company communities, and the stories about work in the client’s life in regard with dominant stories about success and performance. He is one of the founders of la Fabrique Narrative (the narrative factory), a narrative center he founded in Bordeaux, France, where he lives. He has written several books and articles (and songs !) about coaching and reauthoring of work.
Our second presentation is by Elizabeth Feld. Elizabeth comes to the narrative community through a path in the ‘helping professions’ that has taken her through ambulance attending, teaching Physical Education and team coaching, to working as a therapist, coach and trainer in a wide variety of settings.
The Tree of Life
The Tree of Life is a hopeful and inspiring approach to working with children, young people and adults who have experienced hard times. This methodology was co-developed through a partnership between REPSSI (www.repssi.org) and Dulwich Centre Foundation. Ncazelo Ncube (REPSSI) and David Denborough (Dulwich Centre Foundation) initially developed this Tree of Life approach to assist colleagues who work with children affected by HIV/AIDS in southern Africa. This approach has proved so successful and popular that it is now being used with children, young people, and adults in a wide range of countries across Africa, and also in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Nepal, the USA, and elsewhere.
A number of cross-cultural projects are using collective narrative practices: variations on The Tree of Life, community actions, sharing survival stories and a range of performative approaches to responding to trauma. The Dulwich Centre is a leader in this initiative.
Collective Projects
A number of cross-cultural projects are using collective narrative practices: variations on The Tree of Life, community actions, sharing survival stories and a range of performative approaches to responding to trauma. The Dulwich Centre is a leader in this initiative.
One of the ways in which the field of narrative practice continues to diversify is through projects developed through collaborations, invitations and challenges. Many of these projects involve ‘cross-cultural inventions’ and partnerships. Dulwich Centre
Are you engaging in collective projects? What would you like to add?
Linking Stories and Initiatives: A narrative approach to working with the skills and knowledge of communities.
Dulwich Pub. Article
This paper describes an approach to community work informed by narrative ideas that we hope will be of relevance to practitioners in a wide-range of contexts. Over the last year, a number of Aboriginal communities, which are experiencing hard times, have been exchanging stories. These are stories about special skills, special knowledge, about hopes and dreams and the ways that people are holding onto these. They are stories that honour history. This article describes the thinking that has informed this process. It also contains extracts of stories and messages from different communities.
By David Denborough, Carolyn Koolmatrie, Djapirri Mununggirritj, Djuwalpi Marika, Wayne Dhurrkay & Margaret Yunupingu
A number of cross-cultural projects are using collective narrative practices: variations on The Tree of Life, community actions, sharing survival stories and a range of performative approaches to responding to trauma. The Dulwich Centre is a leader in this initiative. The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work 2006 No. 2 www.dulwichcentre.com.au