About Jim

Drama

I was born in London in the early sixties, and grew up the son of a blue collar worker.
After taking my A Levels [Art and Politics], I went to Roehampton Institute to do a degree in Art and Drama. I graduated in 1987 and formed my own Theatre Company - Arts Column. We went on to tour London’s poorer schools and Theatres; it was my first experience of making a positive difference to the lives of people who experience many forms of social exclusion.

As the 80’s drew to a close I was enjoying London life as a thespian and had developed quite a passion for Greek Tragic Drama, my personal idol was Steven Berkoff, and at the time I hoped to emulate his innovative and creative style. I went on to study Mime, Contemporary dance, Commedia dell’arte, Improvisation and African Dance. Whilst it was great fun and very exciting it was a struggle to make ends meet, so I started to think about other ways I could make a living.

Wales

In the early 90s I came to Wales for the weekend; it snowed and there were no trains back so I stayed. I’ve been here ever since. It is a beautiful country and I am privileged to count myself as one of its immigrants.

I have spent the last 20 years working for Housing Charities in South Wales. My first housing Job was Finance Manager for Shortlife Housing Cymru [later Foundation Housing]. In 2001 I moved to The Wallich as Head of Service Development and Communications. Whilst there, I had a varied portfolio including business growth, income generation, organisation development and PR. 

Solution Focus

I have spent the last five or six years, studying and developing Solution Focus Brief Therapy [SFBT] as a viable model of Housing Related Support. I have worked with Managers and front line staff facilitating the use of Solution Focus work in Wales. I did almost all of my SFBT training at BRIEF in London; culminating in the Diploma in Solution Focus Practice in 2009/10. 

I joined Caer Las, as the Executive Director in June 2010. since then we have introduced Solution Focus Practice into our front line services. I personally, still actively practice the approach, providing therapy and coaching to clients from Caer Las. I welcome front line staff to observe the sessions, providing the client is willing.

I am interested in adapting the principles of SF for coaching, staff supervision, clinical supervision, team building and development, running meetings and strategic planning. It is such a logical and obvious way of looking at the world; at its most basic a useful way to have a conversation, at its most sophisticated a potentially life changing personal development tool.

Why we moderate comments

Caer Las is an organisation that is absolutely driven by its values. We moderate comments in order to protect our supporters and ourselves from comments that could be interpreted as offensive; e.g. racist, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist or otherwise discriminatory. There is also a high prevalence of unwanted advertising that gets posted to blogs across the Internet. It is not our intention to inadvertently support distributors or suppliers of pharmaceuticals, pornographic material or other unwanted products.

Solution Focused Links

Guy Shennan Associates
http://www.sfpractice.co.uk/

Guy is an independent consultant who specialises in the conversational approach to helping known as solution focused practice. He uses it in his practice as a coach, counsellor, consultant and supervisor, and teaches people how to use it in the work that they do.

« You just never know | Main | and your best hopes................? »
Friday
Oct282011

Why is Solution Focus a suitable tool for Support Workers?

DateFriday, October 28, 2011 at 2:13PM AuthorJim Bird

How can something which started its life as a model for family therapy be useful in housing related support? That seems like a reasonable question. As one of my colleagues in the sector said to me ‘our clients come here for supported housing, not necessarily therapy’.

It is the inherent flexibility of SF, that makes it such a useful tool. It is why the successful SF practitioners across the globe can work with Executives of huge companies, children struggling in school, homeless people with a substance misuse problem, and a whole range of clients in between. I believe, it comes down to something my SF supervisor said to me; ‘it’s a useful way of having a conversation’. Once you start to see it this way, translating the skill base to use in support work, social work or education, becomes quite an obvious adaptation. After all, the high impact work in those fields comes about by having conversations.

So, you are a support worker and you see your clients in their own home. The referral may have been their request or by some other person or agency. Whatever the agenda, the work is unlikely to be successful for anyone, if it ignores what the client wants to get out of it. By establishing the clients best hopes from the work, helping them to paint a detailed picture of what those hopes look like, and then connecting them with current instances of that preferred future state occurring; you are doing a great job as a support worker and doing solution focus.

CommentPost a Comment | |

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
All HTML will be escaped. Hyperlinks will be created for URLs automatically.
Alert
Comment Moderation Enabled
Your comment will not appear until it has been cleared by a website editor.

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.