John is an experienced and reputable solution-focused practitioner who again demonstrated in this piece of work his mastery of the art of solutions focus. Throughout this work he showecased an sf teaching and learning philosophy and “walked the talk“ with his clients. In a difficult situation he showed great awareness of the needs of the participants and adapted to the challenge by becoming a “tourist“ in their working environment and building a solid platform with them. His non-defensive and co-operative stance won them over. He succeeded in co-constructing the training content with them and involved the participants as co-trainers with great success.(Stanus Cloete)
Reviewed piece of SF work:
Delivering workshops on the SF approach to mandated participants who worked with mandated clients and expected training
At the beginning of the engagement participants in service B had been marshalled by their organisation to be taught the Solution Focused Approach as a result of the service hearing about the effectiveness of the approach with clients they shared in common with a parallel service A. The enthusiasm of managers in both services contributed to me not knowing that service A had decided to do this, arriving at a venue expecting to meet more practitioners from service B, and finding on the day that most were from service A. This presented a major challenge as practitioners in service A worked with voluntary clients and were usually voluntary participants in SF workshops. In contrast service B mainly worked with mandated clients and, as I soon discovered, also felt somewhat mandated to meet with me. By the end of my engagement with the first group of 20 practitioners from service B and a further four groups of a similar size there was clear evidence of practitioners in service B using the SF approach effectively with clients, and service B had a clear plan in place for embedding the approach into the service.
- Lead reviewer: Jenny Clarke
- Second reviewer: Stanus Cloete