Dear reader,
Happy New Year, may it be called a Year of Hope and may it sprout all the seeds you have been planting over 2020!
If I have learned one new thing since the pandemic started, it has been running virtual groups, virtual teams, facilitating virtual meetings and delivering trainings online. And to be honest, I have been enjoying it massively! All the discoveries and possibilities that online environment offers very early on outweighed the doubts and frustrations for not being able to meet face to face. Below is an example of one such event, where Chris and I together delivered a hugely successful post-conference workshop in India. Literally, sky’s become no limit when it comes to running virtual groups. But as they say, it ain’t easy!
Solution Focused approach can be used in a wide variety of fields and settings, ranging from therapy to management, and working with individuals or with groups. Solution Focused Groupwork, whether as therapy, training, support, coaching, or facilitation, and in classes, meetings and other settings, on-line and face-to-face, offers huge potential and can be a very cost-effective, practical and enjoyable way of working with several people at the same time, whether a few or several dozen. It also requires a somewhat different application of Solution Focused skills to those used in individual work. And here’s what Chris and I have prepared for you for 2021: a two day course in Solution Focused Groupwork, that will be delivered online!
In this course, you will explore with Chris and myself how to apply the Solution Focused approach in a variety of settings, both virtual and ‘real’. Chris and I have worked with groups of children, young people, parents, trauma survivors, women in violent relationships, teams and leadership groups. With this experience, together with your experience and skills, you can expect two days of lively, creative, inspiring and highly practical applications of the principles of Solution Focused Groupwork. You will then want to use the what you have learned with your groups immediately, whether you have been working in group settings for a long time, or are thinking of starting to do so. And even if you are already experienced in using the SF approach in your practice, you will gain lots of new skills and ideas from this course.
During our two days together, we will explore the following topics:
- Off to a good start: group warm up & group contracting
- Group spirit & formation: building collaboration, safety, curiosity and respect
- Using the group as a resource to make change simple: preferred future
- Group discovery of histories of preferred futures: what is already working
- Using scales in Groupwork
- Solution Focused negotiating in/with the group
- Solution Focused debriefing and reflection in groups
- Group endings: backpack of ideas for after the group stops meeting
- Various group formats, size, settings and duration: adapting SF
- How to plan Groupwork & stay SF in it (when things go left instead of right)
This workshop will prove invaluable in providing a core set of basic principles for conducting any type of group I which you want to maximise the constructive contribution of all group members.
Chris Iveson and BRIEF, the leading training provider of Solution Focused Practice, have been my first teachers of SF when I accidentally bumped into it in 2014. And since, have remained my nr. 1. Over the past years, Chris and I grew closer as colleagues, friends and especially since 2019, co-trainers. Having workshops delivered for larger groups as well as boutique teams (in 2020 we visited Pakistan, India and Iran) we discovered that our training styles and diverse experience uniquely complement each other, so we decided to run this course for you.
Chris Iveson founded BRIEF with his colleagues, Evan George and Harvey Ratner in 1989 and with them has been developing the most minimal and simplified version of this world-wide phenomenon, Solution Focused Practice. He is author and co-author of many books about the approach, including the much-translated Solution Focused Brief Therapy: 100 Key Points and Techniques and Brief Coaching: A Solution Focused Approach. A former teacher, social worker and family therapist and manager Chris brings a wealth of experience to both his practice and teaching. He is also a well-respected presenter around the world.
I’ve been working with groups since 2008. My work varies from running groups in formal settings: university tutors, students with disabilities, academic staff, EU commission, Slovenian government as well as non formal education on international level under Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps. I’m experienced in running groups as well as teams of various sizes and durations, some of the topics of which include tolerance, youth entrepreneurship, human rights, peace education, inclusion, conflict resolution, stress management, mental health, solidarity and non-formal education.
This course will be epic. Details to register can be accessed here. Chris and I are looking forward to welcome you on board!
With love and from life,
Ribalon 