Anthony Newcastle is a descendant of the Tjingali in central Northern Territory and Mutijebin around the coast west from Darwin. Originally from Darwin, Anthony has worked in community development and theatre right through the Northern Territory, through Queensland and remote communities too. Anthony is a graduate of the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work and is soon to complete a PhD: ‘Didgeri and the search for Green Ant Dreaming: An Indigenist decolonising action research project supporting Aboriginal masculinities’.

To prepare for this Meet the Author please read Anthony’s paper ‘Didgeri, individual therapeutic conversations and No More Silence’. 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 event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

Prior to this session, please read Anthony’s paper, and then bring your questions for Anthony!

When working with people who are living with grief, finding ways to honour and ‘keep alive’ the relationship with the person who has died can be sustaining and hopeful. Lorraine’s approach to working with grief focuses on where and how stories of love not only transcend death, but can be grown and refashioned for deeply powerful connections that live on well beyond the time when our loved one is no longer breathing.

Dr. Lorraine Hedtke publications have appeared in numerous professional journals and magazines and she is the author of several books about grief. Her children’s book, My Grandmother is Always with Me, (2nd Ed), is written with her child, Addison Davidove. Her book, Breathing Life into The Stories of the Dead: Constructing Bereavement Support Groups, outlines an innovative and practical model for practice. She, along with John Winslade, co-authored two books on the topic:  Remembering Lives: Conversations with The Dying and The Bereaved, and The Crafting of Grief: Constructing Aesthetic Responses to Loss.  She regularly consults and presents virtually and in person around the world on how to create life and love affirming conversations with people who are dying and people who are living with grief.

Her work has turned the world of modern-day grief psychology completely upside down. She specializes in working within a post-structural, narrative therapy frame with people who are dying as well as with families after a loved one has died. Dr. Hedtke is a Professor and Coordinator at California State University San Bernardino in the Masters Counseling program and the proprietor of The Fabula Center for counseling and training in Redlands, California, and the website www.rememberingpractices.com. 

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for the session please read Lorraine’s article, The Origami of Re-membering watch the following video

Ben Shannahan (he/him) is a family therapist who lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has many years of experience working primarily in social work and child and adolescent mental health contexts in London, UK and in Perth. He is part of the teaching faculty of Partnership Projects UK, The Institute of Narrative Therapy (UK) and Dulwich Centre. In recent years, Ben has worked alongside young people and their families in diverse contexts. This includes working with families where child and adolescent-to-parent violence is a concern; foster families; young people of diverse genders, sexualities and bodies; and presently with children, young people and their families bereaved through suicide.

In this session, hear more about Ben’s work using narrative practices in developing a community response to a family affected by adolescent-to-parent violence. In his paper, We don’t give up: Developing family and community responses to adolescent-to-parent violence, Ben offers examples of some of the ways he seeks to:

• elicit parental skills that support the re-building of relationships and practices of safety and agency in the face of adolescent-to-parent violence
• promote experiences of strength and solidarity in the face of shame
• support the development of a community response to adolescent-to-parent violence
• develop collective and partnership accountability through multi-generational men’s meetings to address problematic aspects of men’s culture and support the development of alternative and preferred ways of being.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Ben’s paper We don’t give up: Developing family and community responses to adolescent-to-parent violence. 

In Brazil, as elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic and related upheavals exacerbated problems like unemployment and domestic violence. Climate change related disasters, such as flooding, have also brought considerable suffering in communities already dealing with so much. In such situations, feelings of hopelessness, isolation and impotence can became pervasive. 

In this session, come and discuss ways in which Recycling Minds have been developing friendship projects shaped by ‘checklists of psychological and social resistance’ and created a manifesto and definitional ceremonies to acknowledge the skills of communities in response to natural disaster and collective grief. 

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for the session please read the paper: ‘Fala aí checklist: Peer conversations recognising practices of care, hope and solidarity in times of loss and difficulty’; the checklist methodology; and “The Manifesto” – a document that has been made in response to an environmental disaster that occurred in Petrópolis.

And then bring your questions to ask Lúcia!

It is now over 16 years since the first folk cultural narrative methodology was developed: the Tree of Life narrative approach (Ncube, 2006; Denborough, 2008). Since then, the idea of combining narrative practice with a metaphor from treasured local cultural life has been embraced by practitioners and communities. Colleagues in many different contexts have now developed exquisitely diverse forms of metaphoric narrative practice. These include the Tree of Life by Ncazelo Ncube-Mlilo and David Denborough; Team of Life; Seasons of Life by Nihaya Abu-Rayyan; Recipes of Life by Natale Rudland-Wood; Crossing the River (Hegarty, Smith, & Hammersley, 2010); Kite of Life; Rhythm of Life by Adriana Muller; Narratives in the Suitcase by Ncube-Mlilo; Smartphone of Life by Chris Tse; Bicycle of Life by Marc Leger; Beads of Life by Sara Portnoy; and the Mat of Life and Fair Winds by Lúcia Helena Abdalla.

The development of these methodologies was spurred by the following questions or challenges:

• How can narrative therapy be used in contexts where therapy is either not possible (due to lack of resources) or not culturally resonant?
• Can cross-cultural inventions and partnerships enable narrative practices to be used in ways that limit the likelihood of psychological colonisation?

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read the chapter ‘Diversifying and democratising narrative practice through folk cultural methodologies’ from Do you want to hear a story? Adventures in collective narrative practice, and peek at any of the above links.

Then bring your questions for DD!

Maya Sen is a mental health social worker and narrative therapist from Kolkata, India.  She started her journey with narrative practices in the child protection sector. Currently she is working at Heal Grow Thrive Foundation, a psychotherapy service in India. She is also a part of the Dulwich Centre International Teaching Faculty.

The resources for this session describe some of Maya’s experiences responding to hardship in these spaces. The article on “Responding to Grief and Loss in the context of COVID 19” is a collaboration with Anwesha that explores the possibilities of using narrative practice to respond to grief that is complicated by the pandemic. The paper “Working with young people in residential care in India: Uncovering stories of resistance” makes visible what young people are up against while accessing institutional care.  It also explores the ways in which narrative practices can acknowledge injustice, highlight resistance and connect young people to preferred ways of living.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Maya’s articles Responding to Grief and Loss in the context of COVID 19 and Working with young people in residential care in India: Uncovering stories of resistance.

And then bring your questions for Maya!

The meeting will take place for one hour at the following times:
Adelaide – Tuesday, 18 April at 4:30pm
Brisbane – Tuesday, 18 April at 5pm
Wellington – Tuesday, 18 April at 7pm
London – Tuesday, 18 April at 8am
Paris – Tuesday, 18 April at 9am
Kigali – Tuesday, 18 April at 9am
Johannesburg – Tuesday, 18 April at 9am
Istanbul – Tuesday, 18 April at 10am
New Delhi – Tuesday, 18 April at 12:30pm
Singapore – Tuesday, 18 April at 3pm
Beijing – Tuesday, 18 April at 3pm
Hong Kong – Tuesday, 18 April at 3pm
Tokyo – Tuesday, 18 April at 4pm

Register in advance for this meeting: https://unimelb.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcvdOGvqDopEtPmNvgC48LkXmGh96gsQUdG

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We take great care ensuring that the time differences displayed are correct, however it is always best to confirm the time difference yourself if you are unsure. Check what time this event is happening in your timezone here.

These events are organised by Dulwich Centre, Evanston Family Therapy Center and University of Melbourne. They are free, not recorded and go for one hour.

Katie Christensen is a Wurundjeri woman who was born and raised on Dja Dja Wurrung Country in Central Victoria. Katie has extensive experience working in the domestic violence sector supporting women who have experienced violence and men who have used violence via case management and facilitating healing groups. Katie trained and worked as an Aboriginal health worker and a Koori maternity support worker and facilitated Kaalinya Inyanook, a mums and bubs group that focused on wellbeing and information for new mothers. Katie has a Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work. Katie currently works with Open Circle Restorative Justice Services as a restorative justice conference facilitator, embedding narrative therapy skills into the restorative justice process.

Renee Handsaker lives and works on Wurundjeri land, Melbourne, Australia.  Renee is currently the Practice Lead at Open Circle Restorative Justice Service. Renee is interested in adapting and drawing on narrative practices to facilitate restorative processes in response to harm.  Renee facilitates restorative processes in response to various contexts of harm including death (culpable driving and homicide), sexual violence, racism, armed robbery etc.  Renee also facilitates restorative and acknowledgment/apology processes between leaders of institutions and survivors of child sexual abuse. 

Katie and Renee work together at Open Circle Restorative Justice Service in Melbourne, Victoria.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for this session, please read Katie’s paper Yarning as decolonising practice, and Renee’s chapter Narrative approaches to restorative justice conference: Considerations of power, struggle and social transformation from the book Intersecting Stories: Narrative therapy reflections on gender, culture and justice.

And then bring your questions for Katie and Renee about their work!

Angel Yuen works as a narrative therapist in private practice using narrative approaches with individuals, families, children and young people. She also offers narrative supervision and consultation. Part of her previous work for over 20 years was at the Toronto District School Board as a school social worker. Angel is the author of the 2019 book titled’ Pathways beyond despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy. She also is co-editor with Cheryl White of the 2007 book Conversations about gender, culture, violence and narrative practice: Stories of hope and complexity from women of many cultures.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for this session, please read Part 2 of Pathways Beyond Despair: Re-authoring lives of young people through narrative therapy.

And then bring your questions for Angel!

The meeting will take place for one hour at the following times:
Adelaide – Tuesday 28 March, at 9:30am
Singapore – Tuesday 28 March, at 7:00am
Beijing – Tuesday 28 March, at 7:00am
Hong Kong – Tuesday 28 March, 7:00am
Auckland – Tuesday 28 March, at 12:00pm
Vancouver – Monday 27 March, at 4:00pm
Los Angeles – Monday 27 March, at 4:00pm
Mexico City – Monday 27 March, at 5:00pm
Chicago – Monday 27 March, at 6:00pm
Atlanta – Monday 27 March, at 7:00pm
Toronto – Monday 27 March, at 7:00pm
Santiago – Monday 27 March, at 8:00pm
Rio de Janeiro – Monday 27 March, at 8:00pm

Many women in prison face multiple oppressions that intersect. They are experienced not singly but as a single synthesised experience. Women who have been incarcerated have lived experiences of early abuse and trauma, poverty, violence as an adult and systemic racist discrimination. Prisons are not spaces of healing. Instead, they continue experiences of violence, abuse, subjugation and oppression. The prison–industrial complex appears to be the preferred approach to issues of poverty, homelessness, victimisation and systemic racism, continuing injustice for women, in particular Aboriginal women who are the fastest growing group of incarcerated people. This chapter explores conversations I have shared with women in prison. These women have both used and been subjected to interpersonal violence. In this context, it has been important to find ways to make the operations of power visible. It is my contention that some of this power is concealed and contained in binary constructions of sex, gender, race and class, and that disrupting binary constructions makes it possible to reclaim the complexity of women’s lives. It is my hope that these conversations can invite a shared interest in exploring a practice of examining, disrupting, shifting and dismantling the deep historical and structural systems of interlocking violence and oppression that are connected to interpersonal violence.

This chapter was published in the book Intersecting Stories: Narrative therapy reflections on gender, culture and justice, edited and published by Dulwich Centre (2020).

Jill Faulkner was born in Aotearoa, and has lived on the lands of the First Nations peoples of Australia longer than she has lived on the country of her grandfather, descendant of the Ngati Te Whiti hapu of the Ati Awa iwi. Jill has worked with children, families and communities for more than 40 years. Her thinking and work are shaped by these multiple relationships and storied journeys. A therapist/activist, consultant, researcher, community practice worker, supervisor and social justice storyteller, Jill is committed to sharing knowledges.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read the chapter Responding to women in prison who have used interpersonal violence: a narrative approach disrupting binaries and then bring your questions for Jill! 

The meeting will take place for one hour at the following times:
Adelaide – Tuesday, 21 March at 4:30pm
Brisbane – Tuesday, 21 March at 4pm
Wellington – Tuesday, 21 March at 7pm
London – Tuesday, 21 March at 6am
Paris – Tuesday, 21 March at 7am
Kigali – Tuesday, 21 March at 8am
Johannesburg – Tuesday, 21 March at 8am
Istanbul – Tuesday, 21 March at 9am
New Delhi – Tuesday, 21 March at 11:30am
Singapore – Tuesday, 21 March at 2pm
Beijing – Tuesday, 21 March at 2pm
Hong Kong – Tuesday, 21 March at 2pm
Tokyo – Tuesday, 21 March at 3pm

Register in advance for this meeting: https://unimelb.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcpduuoqDIsHNCLxVemUj0HOYuA4PvG0u9D

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

We take great care ensuring that the time differences displayed are correct, however it is always best to confirm the time difference yourself if you are unsure. This is a great website to calculate time differences: https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html

These events are organised by Dulwich Centre, Evanston Family Therapy Center and University of Melbourne. They are free, not recorded and go for one hour.

This Meet the Author we welcome Makungu Akinyela to discuss two of his papers: ‘De-colonizing our lives: Divining a post-colonial therapy’ & ‘Cultural Domination and Therapeutic Resistance: A discussion on decolonization and telling our own stories’.

As a scholar and a therapist Makungu Akinyela has been a committed Social Justice organizer for over forty-years focused on struggles for human rights and justice for Black people in the United States and the African diaspora. His research and writing includes such subjects as cultural democracy and mental health care; cultural domination and therapeutic resistance; reparations and the role of mental health workers in repairing oppressions wounds and African centered family therapy. He is the developer of a culturally specific approach to narrative called Testimony therapy.

This event will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for this session, please read Makungu’s two papers, De-colonizing our lives: Divining a post-colonial therapy & Cultural Domination and Therapeutic Resistance: A discussion on decolonization and telling our own stories.

And then bring your questions!

Amanda Tay is a social work practitioner providing psychosocial services to people facing terminal illness in a home hospice in Singapore. Her interests include therapeutic social work with lived experiences, and positioning people as authors of their preferred narratives within their communities.

In this meet the author we will discuss Amanda’s paper: STEPS Together: Conversations with people facing terminal illness as well as her Friday Afternoon Video.

Terminal illness, death and dying are universal human experiences, but discussing them can be challenging. This paper demonstrates the use of a therapeutic conversation guide, ‘STEPS Together’, which employs narrative practices to develop preferred identities in the face of hardships related to terminal illness. The paper also demonstrates the localisation of narrative practices so that they are culturally appropriate and resonant in Singapore.

This event will be facilitated by the marvellous Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa will offer reflections.

Before this session, please read Amanda’s paper or watch her Friday Afternoon Video and then bring your questions!

Tuesday 28^th February / 9:30am (Adelaide time)

Beck Paterson (they/them) is a non-binary social worker who was born and raised in Treaty 7 territory (Calgary, Canada). They are currently working as an outreach worker with young people who have been given neurodiverse diagnoses and their families. 

Beck’s paper, From seeds to a forest: Nurturing narrative practice in an adolescent mental health program, and their Friday Afternoon Video, Nurturing a Narrative Milieu discuss their work as a counselor in an in-patient mental health crisis treatment program in Calgary, Canada. The goal of this project was to support nurturance and growth of narrative ideas and work in a setting that can often be hostile to such practices. Beck also hopes this project will offer solidarity and understanding of the difficulties for practitioners new to narrative ideas in navigating the shift from dominant practices to more narrative-aligned practices. Guided by the metaphor of seed-planting, growth, and nature, the initiatives described were both intentional and organic in origin, and demonstrate how bringing narrative ideas to the forefront of Beck’s practice changed not only their own work, but the larger program as well.

This event will be facilitated by the marvellous Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections. 

To prepare for this session, please read From seeds to a forest: Nurturing narrative practice in an adolescent mental health program, and watch their recent Friday Afternoon Video, Nurturing a Narrative Milieu.

And then bring your questions about Beck’s article and video!

Tuesday 21st February / 4:30pm (Adelaide, SA time)

Today, when you move around villages, you hear people complaining about how things have changed and how it is increasingly becoming difficult for families to sustain! Our communities are further weakened by Poverty, Disasters, Diseases, chronic diseases, wars, climate change and conflict disintegrating the traditional social support systems that provided protection for people. In the absence of a comprehensive social protection plan in many underdeveloped countries, greater uncertainties and risks associated with competitive pressures in the new economy fuelled by the digital divide pushes many people under poverty line.

Communities are stretched to the breaking point and important values that kept societies, communities and families together are eroding as a result of colonization, natural calamities, extreme economic hardships, epidemics and adoption of approaches that disempower people rendering them as passive recipients of knowledge.

This event will be facilitated by the marvellous Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Joseph Kalisa (Rwanda) will offer reflections.

Before this session, please watch The Power of Hope in Action by Caleb Wakhungu below.

The first Meet the Author for 2023 features Poh Lin Lee!

Poh is a Chinese Malaysian Australian woman who comes to her practice through multiple experiences and relationships as a narrative therapy practitioner, social worker, co-researcher of trauma/displacement, writer, teacher, film protagonist and creative consultant. Since 2004 Poh has been engaged in therapeutic co-research with people and communities responding to themes of experience such as family and state violence, displacement (from rights, land, home, body, identity, relationships), liminality and reclaiming practices of staying with experience and preference. Creative and therapeutic fields intersected for Poh whilst working with people seeking asylum within a film project with director Gabrielle Brady, Island of the Hungry Ghosts (2018). Poh is currently a freelancer creating crafted exercises and content to accompany people in their practice(s)/projects/processes on Patreon alongside regularly tutoring, teaching and offering experiential workshops across therapeutic, creative and academic fields.

In this session, Poh will be discussing the paper Making Now Precious. This paper explores bringing together a series of narrative principles and practices in response to those who are seeking asylum in Australia and also experiencing the consequences of torture and trauma. This work is a description of ongoing co-research with asylum seekers into conversations that can be meaningful in a context of unpredictability and instability.

Making Now Precious was written in 2013 – 10 years on we have this chance to gather and look back together.  I wonder how these stories of practice and ideas might have us noticing about how we collectively ‘make now precious’ in 2023?

This meeting will be facilitated by Tileah Drahm-Butler (of the Darumbal/Kulilli and Wanyurr Majay Yidinji Nations). Jill Freedman will offer reflections.

To prepare for this session, please read Making Now Precious, and bring along your questions!