Innovations in Research, Co-research, Supervision, Teaching and Writing

Tim Donovan is a mental health social worker in Alice Springs, Australia. While working with clients who experienced sexual abuse, he met ‘Dale’ and his fight for justice and freedom from shame. The stories Tim hears in his work often represent a political act against acts of oppression. Tim currently works as a school counselor for a secondary college. He is the author of ‘Reclaiming Lives from sexual violence’ in The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work (2018) and co-authoring ‘Reclaiming Lives from Sexual Violence: Understanding Shame' with Dale Johns.

Amy Druker (she/her) from Toronto, Canada, first met the narrative worldview when she was working as a harm reduction outreach worker in downtown Toronto. A co-worker encouraged Amy to attend a workshop on narrative therapy because of their shared ethics and politics. At the time, Amy was not interested in pursuing the practice of therapy, as she did not yet understand how the projects of social justice and the practice of therapy were combinable. This changed when Amy attended her first workshop on collective narrative practices. Amy was particularly captivated by an approach to working with people that did not insist on the individualizing or pathologizing of people’s suffering. Amy sought out work at a public agency whose programs (serving youth and families) were guided by Narrative Therapy, where she practiced for 7.5 years. Amy describes her time at Oolagen as one of the richest learning and unlearning experiences of her life. Amy currently runs an independent practice where she consults with individuals, couples/people in relationships and engages in clinical supervision (co-learning conversations) with therapists and community workers both in her independent practice and at Breakaway Community Services, a harm reduction agency. Amy’s practice is guided by post structuralist ideas and the ethics of social justice (anti-oppression), curiosity, consent and collaboration. Amy has facilitated workshops on various topics on narrative therapy since 2014. Amy is on faculty at the Narrative Therapy Initiative, Narrative Therapy Centre and Re-Authoring Teaching. To get in touch with Amy, please email her at [email protected] or visit her website: www.amydruker.com.

Sol D’Urso, M.A., LMFT is Adjunct Faculty in the MFT program at the University of San Diego. Sol’s primary clinical work has been with refugee families, survivors of torture, at risk children and youth and transnational individuals and families in San Diego and the US-Mexico border region. Sol provides therapy and supervision in English and Spanish. In addition to her work as Adjunct Faculty at USD, she has a private practice and also co-facilitates a narrative consultation/supervision group with Dr. Sarah Kahn for therapists in the community. curriculum using a whole systems approach.

Sarah Beth Hughes works as a Couple and Family Therapist in Nelson, BC Canada. She was introduced to Narrative ideas through her work as the North American Distributor of Dulwich Publications throughout the 1990’s. She got the privilege of attending many of Michael White’s training and got inspired to do this kind of work herself. Along the way she also met many of Michael’s colleagues and friends including Peggy Sax who have helped her feed her passion for this work.

Sarah Kahn (San Diego) is the Director of the Counseling and Social Change program at San Diego State University (SDSU) and teaches at SDSU at both the undergraduate and graduate level. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and has been learning and practicing from a narrative perspective since 2003. Sarah’s research focuses on narrative approaches to pedagogy, the clinical supervision process and mentorship. Her teaching addresses the areas of culture, power and difference, the social construction of identity and applied clinical training. She is interested in the many bridges that can be constructed between narrative, power, pedagogy, and community practice. In addition, Sarah maintains an active therapy practice, supervises and co-leads a community based narrative consultation group for both licensed and unlicensed therapists. She is also a member of Narrative Initiatives San Diego, a community-based therapy practice and training center located in San Diego, California.

Randy Nelson, MA, LMHC likes words and people. Fifteen years ago, he fortuitously stumbled upon Narrative Therapy in the Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling program at Seattle University. He has been an active member of the Seattle Narrative Group, a Narrative Therapy consultation and training collective. He is immensely grateful for the generosity of wisdom and care of Marcy Rivas and others in the Seattle Narrative community. For the last thirteen years, Randy has worked as an adult case manager/counselor in the community mental health setting of Harborview Mental Health Services in Seattle. He has conducted trainings on Narrative Therapy for the UW Medicine Department of Psychiatry and other community organizations. In the consulting room and in life, Randy endeavors to position himself at the clunky and elusive intersection of skepticism, lightheartedness, and solidarity.

Beth Prullage (she/her) is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker from Easthampton, MA. She is an Adjunct Professor at the Smith College School for Social Work, where she has taught narrative therapy since 2007. She currently works at the Counseling Center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is a supervisor in the training program, and also is the Co-Coordinator of the Groups Program.

Juan Carlos (Choco) was born and raised in El Salvador, where he obtained a Bachelor’s in Science with a major in Psychology at Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas (UCA). After his undergraduate studies, he worked in a church community clinic and in private practice, providing low-cost mental health services. In 2013, he was awarded a scholarship to attend San Diego State University’s Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy program with an emphasis on narrative therapy. After completing his Master, Juan Carlos worked for a year as a bilingual case manager with the homeless population in San Francisco, California, supporting primarily undocumented, Spanish-speaking immigrants.

Akansha Bye-Vaswani Ph.D., was introduced to narrative practices in Mumbai when she began working at Ummeed Child Development Center in Mumbai in 2010. Here she was also introduced to principles of family-centered care, early intervention, and community-based advocacy. Her interest in systemic change took her to San Diego State University where her studies in marriage and family therapy strengthened her commitment to developing clinical practice through the lens of de-colonizing, feminist, and postmodern practice. Her doctoral work at UMass Boston, focused on drivers of institutional corruption in psychiatry and solutions for reform, particularly the practice of deprescribing and rational prescribing grounded in informed consent. She is currently an Acting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine where she works on the implementation of family-to-family support programs for families of persons managing psychosis.