This article describes an innovative use of narrative documents in which members of a project called Shame Fighters Anonymous (SFA) wrote about being sexually abused/assaulted and how they were combating the resulting shame. Their writing was compiled into booklets and shared with other group members. This use of narrative documents enabled SFA members to join a shared conversation without having to meet in person and it took the place of a more traditional ‘group therapy’ approach. To demonstrate the unique outcomes SFA members experienced, direct quotes are shared from the participants’ writing and from a group interview transcript in which participants reflected upon their involvement with this project. The narrative therapy principles of pain as testimony, legacy, and contribution through hardship, as well as the feminist principle of the personal is political, are presented as the theoretical backbone of this project. The article concludes by laying out the steps required for recreating this project and it invites readers to try this innovative use of narrative documents in place of group therapy in their own work context.

This paper explores various narrative practices in responding to the control of substances over people’s lives: privileging marginalised voices, uncovering and elevating tacit or insider-knowledges, documenting and archiving these knowledges, specifically in the form of a collaged visual called, ‘Real people, real knowledge art board’.

This paper presents a case study and analysis of the use of creative arts and narrative tools in the practice of social work, with a particular focus on fostering solidarity and social change. We describe an innovative project aimed at tackling oppression with a group by and for migrant mothers in Montreal. First, we discuss how arts practices can be used to connect with ourselves and to nurture a collective consciousness. Second, we show how creative writing and the narrative process can offer a way of connecting in a community-based group, and can foster community empowerment. Third, we develop the idea that the dissemination of a collectively created artwork can create connections with the broader community and function as a tool for social change.

The Triple P Positive Parenting Program is a form of behavioural family intervention, and is the world’s leading parenting program ranked by the extent of the evidence base. Like narrative therapy, Triple P is practiced internationally. This paper tells the story of facilitating Group Triple P using innovative narrative practice initiatives throughout the eight-week program, ‘walking the line’ between the two practices. The paper begins with the story of how this practice innovation originated. It then describes the metaphor of walking the line before providing examples of double story development from practice. This innovation offers participants a culturally responsive and politically decolonising facilitation of Group Triple P while maintaining fidelity to the program.

Perinatal depression (PND) affects about one in every seven women who give birth in Australia each year (healthdirect, 2017) and suicide is considered to be the leading cause of maternal death in the perinatal period (Ellwood, 2016). Although a number of risk factors have been identified, the cause of PND is still not clearly understood (BetterHealth, 2017). Understandings of perinatal depression are predominantly shaped by a biomedical model, and the insider knowledge of women is given little if any space. Amanda was keen to engage with women to seek some answers to PND. The following questions helped to shape this exploration: What do women consider to be the issues and problems that make up PND? What have they learnt in relation to what reduces its influence and presence in their lives? What becomes possible for women when they recognise their knowledge as legitimate knowledge?