Three experienced advocates, Leonie Sheedy, Vlad Selacovic and Frank Golding, join in conversation with David Denborough to share their experiences in gaining access to childhood records for those who grew up in Australia’s orphanages, children’s Homes and foster care. The journey of discovery is often painful, even re-traumatising. Some Care Leavers nd the of cial narrative does not match their version of their childhood. There are surprising omissions and inaccuracies and infuriating censorship that privileges other people’s privacy over the right to the truth. The conversation shifts to strategies for dealing with these problems, but more importantly to the value of Care Leavers creating their own accounts of childhood and a more honest history.

This paper describes the work of the Squid Group, a narratively informed peer mental health phenomenon that occurs regularly in Adelaide, South Australia. It includes the history of this group, its key principles, and some of the ways in which narrative practices are used within it. This paper began its life as an interview with Andrew Chambers, Daniel Havey, Keryn Robelin, Jennifer Swan and Kristy Webb. The interviewer was David Denborough.

This paper describes work among a group of Aboriginal men who meet regularly in Brisbane. It interweaves stories of individual therapeutic conversations, the development of a community group called Didgeri, which connects people to culture and to each other, and the creation of a social action project to reduce the shame and silence experienced by Aboriginal men who were subjected to sexual abuse in childhood. It explores how narrative therapy ideas have informed this work.

This article explores playful and creative ways of using different roles in work with children who have experienced traumatic life events. Imaginatively engaging with the standpoint of a doctor, a king or queen, or an admired person, can provide a new relational context for therapist and child, and can spark the discovery of more hopeful stories. Opportunities to step into unfamiliar positions, such as that of researcher, can similarly provide fresh vantage points and insights. We can avoid coercing children to speak, and instead allow them to ask questions and learn more about their experiences and those of others. From a new position, children can discover that they have ideas, knowledge and responses in relation to their experiences. They can reconnect with values that are important to them, evaluate their relationship with their dif culties, and take a clear stance towards their problems. The article is illustrated with an account of the author’s work with 8-year-old John. A range of narrative ideas and practices are explored and expanded in this context.

This article explores the in uence of sociocultural narratives on stories of birth, and the use of individual and collective narrative practices in responding to these stories. It emerged from a research project that included 12-recorded conversations with individuals and couples about their experiences of birth. The article describes narrative practices used in these conversations, including: re-authoring and the development of alternative storylines, particularly in response to stories of grief and regret about birth; deconstructing and externalising the context and narratives of birth, turning the gaze back onto structural or systemic issues rather than those at their affect; re-membering and strengthening stories of membership and connection during pregnancy, birth and early parenting; and the absent but implicit, including pain as testimony. The article discusses the methodology and ethics of a collective narrative project that included the production of a document that elevates the insider knowledges of storytellers about their experiences of birth.

The Mile Wide Project is the name of an effort by Joel Glenn Wixson, a psychologist and musician from the state of Maine in the United States, to stand up against the invitations people receive to end their lives. This article uses excerpts of a conversation about the Mile Wide Project between Joel and his friend and colleague Joe Mageary, who is also a counsellor and musician from the United States, to explain what the Mile Wide Project is and to highlight some of the possible impacts this project can have on people who have experienced invitations from suicide as well as people who care about those who have been impacted by suicide’s invitations.

In the context of providing counselling to people who are being held within mandatory immigration detention, this paper seeks to explore the possibilities and dilemmas of inviting people who act as interpreters to reposition as meaningful witnesses to asylum seekers’ performances of preferred identity. These moments of witnessing, when offered in ways that attend to the complexities and dynamics of culture, gender, class, ethnicity, sexuality, education, ability and age, can contribute to the honouring and thickening of the alternative stories and robust identity claims of people seeking asylum, who are exploring ways to respond to multiple, ongoing injustices. This paper offers ideas for making visible practices of solidarity and shared cultural knowledges and understandings between people seeking asylum and people who interpret.

This paper explores the use of double-story development and other narrative practices to work intergenerationally with people from refugee backgrounds. It examines double- storied accounts of the effects of and responses to trauma, displacement and other dif culties, using work with a family from the Democratic Republic of Congo as a case study. Response-based enquiries, externalising and re-authoring were engaged to seek out alternative storylines about skills, knowledges and values. These alternative stories were further reinforced through therapeutic documentation, metaphors such as Team of Life, de nitional ceremonies and other narrative methods. In particular, this paper offers examples of practice in which rich stories and preferred identities were shared intergenerationally with family members or trusted audiences, and how this contributed to reinforcing preferred narratives. The paper also describes the author’s engagement with collaborative practices in order to democratise expertise and address power differentials inherent in working across language and culture with often marginalised communities.