When a baby dies, before or after his or her birth, we (counsellors and lay people alike) are often at a loss as to how to help. This article addresses the delicate conversations needed to demonstrate how relational narratives can live on after the death of a baby whether he or she dies in utero, miscarried or born still. Using re-membering practices and narrative counselling, we explore how a deceased child’s ongoing identity can continue to inform sustaining narratives for those living with grief.

Speed Date a Muslim is a monthly event that invites interested members of the public to sit down with Muslim women and learn more about their experiences. There is no match-making involved, but there are plenty of opportunities to make meaningful connections. Hana Assa ri started Speed Date a Muslim in 2015 to provide a space for respectful conversations, which she hoped might break down some of the fear, mistrust and prejudice she saw taking root. The events take place in one of her two restaurants in Melbourne.

This article demonstrates the application of the theory and practices of narrative therapy to counselling men who have been subject to childhood sexual violence. It presents an illustrative case of the author’s work with a man who was sexually abused as a child by a clergy member at his church and school. A narrative approach supported the man to gain new understandings of his experiences of sexual violence, and also of the values and skills he had maintained and developed through these experiences. He was able to move from feeling that the abuse de ned him to seeing himself as a person of integrity who was able to use his experiences to contribute to the lives of others.

This paper describes the ways I have drawn on narrative and feminist practices in my work in a women’s counselling centre in Calgary, Canada. It emphasises how principles of feminist poetics can be applied to therapeutic conversations that are guided by a narrative metaphor.

This article describes a group work process designed to both privilege and document the skills and knowledges of parents whose children are in out-of-home care as a result of statutory intervention. The group focused on salvaging preferred territories of identity. It was designed to enable the contribution of participants by linking their narratives with those of other parents facing similar circumstances, and providing opportunities to inform the work of a local organisation developing practices for family inclusion. As part of this group project, parents were able to identify steps they need to take to redress the actions and ideas that led to child removal, and, in doing so, to develop their practices for caring for and protecting children.

Social responses to sexual violence matter. Yet in Australia, and in many other places, responses to sexual violence have become highly professionalised, individualised and privatised, reducing the possibilities for healing redress. Exploring friendships and community responses to violence may increase the possibilities for healing, justice and solidarity. This paper describes a project that honoured and made visible community- based responses to sexual violence. The project sought to enable contribution by eliciting ways in which friends have supported survivors, and ways in which survivors have contributed to their friends and others. The project was guided by narrative practices including re-authoring conversations, outsider witnessing and collective documentation.

At times of severe personal crisis, a person’s problems often become the focus. Individuals can be reduced to diagnoses, taking away their sense of agency. Stripped of the acknowledgement of their unique skills and knowledges their stories and identities become thin and problem-riddled. This article describes the experiences of a practitioner who brought her knowledge of narrative practices to bear when hospitalised as the result of her own breakdown. Narrative practices provided an antidote to pathologising discourses and practices of power and privilege. They enabled her to maintain dignity and facilitated an awakening to hope.