ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR Ayse Adil and Joe Lettieri founded Family Based Solutions in 2012 after they came across a family experiencing child to parent abuse. They have since expanded their services to include family domestic abuse recovery and working with adult offenders of domestic abuse.
In their workshop they invite four parents who been through the service to discuss their experience of solution focus coaching. The parents all named after fictional characters were asked to be very honest about the approach and explored not only what went well but also what could be better.
Chris Iveson worked as family therapist and social worker before he co-founded – together with Evan George and Harvey Ratner - the BRIEF therapy practice in London. The long-lasting cooperation with Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg and their many innovations in SF practice have made BRIEF a leading center for the development and teaching of SF Brief Therapy and Coaching. Chris has authored several books, among them “Brief Coaching. A Solution Focused Approach”.
Dave McKenna is a solution focussed practitioner with 20 years local government experience and a PhD in local politics, based in the UK.
He specialise in public governance; particularly local government scrutiny, partnership working, public participation and digital democracy.
He helps councils and other public bodies with improvement, design and research work.
He is an active member of Notwestminster - a volunteer network of people who want to redesign local democracy.
Edwin is a Master Solution Focus Practitioner (IASTI) and also a Solution Focused Coach certified at the PCC level (ICF). Edwin co-founded Centre for Fathering in Singapore, which won the best new initiative award in year 2000, to inspire dads to be more involved with their children. He appeared numerous times on radio and conferences to speak on fathering issues in Singapore. He delights in equipping dads to be a coach to their children.
Evan George is a co-owner of BRIEF. He set up BRIEF in 1989 with Chris Iveson and Harvey Ratner and they have worked together ever since.
Their core interest has been not just the solution focused approach itself but also the remarkable differences that the application of the approach can make to people’s lives, to organisations, to performance, to well-being, to energy and to creativity in teams. And all of this achieved within strikingly short time-spans.
Gill is the manager of Learning Space, a children and young people’s mental health charity based in Surrey, England.
She is a trained secondary school teacher with a background in special educational needs.
Gill achieved her MA in Emotional Factors in Learning and Teaching at the Tavistock and Portman Clinic.
She is one of the founding members of the Learning Space team and has been using solution-focused approaches to support children, young people and families since the beginning of the charity in 1997.
Greg has been using the Solution Focused approach for over ten years now with a particular focus on family work.
He is currently the Training Team lead in the D-BIT service within Essex Social Care, where he helps to keep families together where it is safe and appropriate to do so.
Greg is a published author, and he is also a co-founder of Solution Focused Possibilities where he provides sessions, supervision, training, etc. Greg has a passion for supporting others to develop their practice to a high standard, which has led to him being the co-lead for UKASFP Accreditation.
Guy Shennan is an independent solution-focused therapist, coach and trainer who has used the solution-focused approach for nearly 30 years. He is based in London, England, where he worked with BRIEF between 2004 and 2010. He created and co-led BRIEF’s Diploma in Solution-Focused Practice, which began in 2005.
Guy trained originally as a social worker and was the Chair of the British Association of Social Workers from 2014 to 2018. In 2018, Guy co-founded the Solution-Focused Collective to explore ways of using solution-focused ideas and practices for social change.
I have two major passions in business:
coaching, training and developing people to achieve their true potential excellence in dealing with people, both internally and externally, is the way to deliver sustainable increases in results
Janine has over 20 years’ experience in executive coaching and training. Having previously held senior HR positions in the UK and New Zealand, she also has a wealth of expertise in organisational development and change management.
Her speciality is bringing about positive change and implementing constructive ways of working. She is a frequent conference presenter, contributes to management journals and has co-authored two books.