Older adults – Re-Authoring Teaching

October, 2017 Collab Salon: Harvesting the fruits of lived lives – Bobbi Rood & Mark Schmoll

Work with older adults often invokes re-membering conversations and sparks new pathways through connections with the past. By listening deeply we work with our clients to find strength, courage and agency to continue life’s journeys. Often illness or loss forces us to accept unimagined challenges and changes that stretch our resources. By developing an understanding of these changes and mapping a new course, clients in the eldercare program call upon inner and outer resources to navigate the course, enrich their relationships and challenge expectations. Nearly 20 years ago Vermont addressed the problems of rural living and social isolation among elders who qualify as homebound and for whom psychotherapy is not accessible by creating traveling clinicians who visit elders in their homes to address family and individual issues. This program partners with community partners serving elders. This salon offered a glimpse into the work of the Eldercare Clinician and a sampling of some rescued word poetry.

September, 2017 Collab Salon: Re-uniting Generations – Anna Silnitskaya & Maria Tiunova (Moscow, Russia)

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.