Responding to hardship and trauma:
Dulwich Centre international skills-based
narrative training/supervision program
psychosocial support workers, group facilitators, and community workers
Dulwich Centre has recently been approached by a number of practitioners in different parts of the world who are trying to respond to people who have experienced significant hardship and/or trauma. These may be women, for instance, who have experienced violence, or groups of vulnerable children, or those in prison, or those struggling with physical illness, or broader communities who are struggling with the effects of grief, poverty, war, migration, and/or colonisation. These practitioners have asked whether it would be possible for us to develop a narrative training program specifically focusing on ways of working that link individuals together and that respond to groups and communities.
This narratively-informed program will provide:
- training in practical, easy-to-engage methodologies
- supervision and support in using these in your work
- links with practitioners working in similar contexts
- specially-tailored program to fit practitioners’ particular challenges
- reading and writing program to consistently reflect on practice
- the use of a range of different mediums of practice – conversational, individual, group, community, visual art, song
- ways of working relevant for use within institutions – schools, hospitals, prisons, detention centres, psychiatric units
Each participant will identify a particular project in their own working context that they would like to focus on and the training/supervision program will then become a context where this work would be highly supported. The program will be shaped so that it fits the particular requirements and interests of those who attended. Collective narrative work that Dulwich Centre has been involved with in a wide range of countries and contexts (Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Aboriginal Australian communities) will be shared. And participants will be trained in a range of easy-to-engage narrative collective methodologies such as collective documents, the Tree of Life, Team of Life, collective timelines, and The River of Memories/River of Dreams. These are methods of working that utilise narrative ideas and can be used with individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced significant hardship and/or trauma.
We have carefully designed this program so that it provides a rigorous learning context and is also accessible to the widest range of participants. This is what we have come up with:
Intensive teaching blocks in Adelaide or South Africa (attend one or both)
This program will involve two intensive teaching blocks, one to be held at Dulwich Centre in Adelaide in March 2009. The other to be held in September in South Africa. Participants have the option of either attending one of these blocks or both of them.
Reading and writing component
Over the course of one year, participants will read and respond to ten collections of papers/articles/chapters and write reflections relating these back to their own work and context. Participants' reflections will then be responded to by Faculty members via email.
Participant e-list
Participants will participate in a group e-list in which selected reflections will be posted.
Interactive website
Participants will post descriptions and photographs (where appropriate) of their work-in-progress on an interactive website so that these can be shared with other participants and faculty members.
Supervision conversations via Skype
Supervision conversations with participants will occur through Skype or by phone.
Project
A considerable part of the program will be based around supporting practitioners in engaging with a project in their local context. This could be work with a particular group, or linking a number of individuals who are facing similar issues, or work in a school or community. The options for the sort of projects that participants may choose to engage with are endless. Email support will be provided for these projects. Participants will also submit a draft project write-up on which they will receive feedback.
Optional side-trip / learning experience
An optional side-trip/learning experience will occur after the teaching block in South Africa. This will involve a trip to Uganda and/or Rwanda to meet with local workers who are using narrative ideas in their particular contexts and to participate in various community projects. (Participants will need to pay extra to be included in this optional side-trip/learning experience).
Faculty
For this training program, the Dulwich Centre Faculty will be joined by internationally-respected narrative therapists, including Ncazelo Ncube (Zimbabwe/South Africa), Jill Freedman (USA), Barbara Wingard (Australia), and Geir Lundby (Norway). Dulwich Centre Faculty members will include David Denborough, Carolyn Markey, Cheryl White, David Newman, and Sekneh Beckett.
Cost
The cost for this program is AUD $2950. This includes all teaching costs. It does not include airfares, accommodation, or travel costs. Some reading materials will be supplied. Some will need to be purchased. Please note that this cost is the same for those who are attending one intensive teaching block or both blocks. All participants will start the training program at the same time (online) and be linked with each other virtually from that time onwards. Those who are only attending one block will complete extra email/Skype/phone supervision consultations.
Dates
Participants will be introduced to each other online in the first two weeks of March 2009. The first reading and writing reflection will also take place in these two weeks.
The first teaching block for this program will be in Adelaide from 12th March to 20th March (We will be teaching through the weekend).
The second teaching block will take place at the end of September/early October in South Africa. This teaching block will coincide with a broader narrative therapy and community work training event which will enable participants to meet with practitioners from different parts of the world.
The training program will run until the end of November 2009.
To register
Registrations for this training program are now closed. However, if you are interested in participating in a similar program in the future, please email Virginia Leake at
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