Dear colleagues,

Since 2003, a small group of us in Brisbane have been quietly dreaming of a “weaving the threads” conference.  We have imagined this as an opportunity to acknowledge and celebrate the diversity of practice traditions, or “threads”, being drawn upon in the still emerging tapestry of “strengths-based” approaches. Included among these “threads” are the solution-oriented, narrative, appreciative enquiry, assets-based, participatory and developmental community based practice traditions as well as others whose practitioners may or may not use the term “strengths”.

If your work is influenced by any of these traditions, you are warmly invited to make a proposal to contribute to the conference program. We hope to bring together many different kinds of contributions as well as structures that give participants a wide variety of ways of engaging with each others ideas.

We are keen to value the contributions of both experienced workers and those who are ‘recent arrivals’ to these approaches. For those who are new to presenting, some support will be made available within the limits of our resources.

• Interactive workshop (either 90 minutes or 180 minutes)

Focussed on the collaborative development of skills and ideas. Facilitation should enable attendees to actively participate and/or share some of their own experiences or knowledge.

• Paper (oral) presentation (30 minutes each - two papers per 90 minute session plus time for questions)

Workers, teams or organisations presenting a more formal account of any aspect of their practice/journey.

• Performance/Screening (either 30 minutes or 90 minutes)

Dramatic performance, audiovisual presentation, poetry reading, etc.

• Live Demonstrations (up to 90 minutes)

An opportunity for workers to demonstrate their work (informally, with an interested audience) followed by an opportunity to chat about the demonstration and the practice ideas or maps that were being used.

• “Practitioners chatting” (up to 60 minutes)

For workers who don’t have the time, energy, confidence (or whatever) to put together a paper/workshop but who would like to make themselves available to be interviewed (informally, with an interested audience) about some aspect of their work. We will arrange a suitable interviewer who will chat with you in the months before the conference about the topics or stories you’d hope to focus on.

• Practice Issues/Interest Groups (up to 90 minutes)

We would be very interested in any suggestions you may want to make about “practice issues/interest groups” that may be convened during the conference. We have wondered what difference it could make to enable people who register for the conference to engage in e-conversations in the lead-up to October, to make preliminary connections in relation to shared experiences/interests.

We anticipate that we may receive more proposals than we can accommodate in the conference program. The following criteria will be applied to all proposals:

• Relevance to Conference streams
• Practical and immediately useful/enjoyable for participants
• Congruence with the principles and processes of a strengths-based approach

How are we applying these principles and beliefs to our work with individuals, families and communities? How are workers and teams taking up these approaches across a diversity of contexts (eg. child protection, mental health, community development, disability services, accommodation and homelessness prevention services, etc.)? What’s working? What’s being learned? What are the current challenges? IMPORTANT NOTE: Practitioners and organisations are encouraged to support community members to attend as guests of the conference to share their reflections on their experiences. Presentations could take a variety of forms including storytelling, performance, interview and panel discussions. Kyabra will provide some financial support, including travel, accommodation and airfares, for community members contributing to the conference. Where abstracts are successful, the level of financial assistance will be discussed. Organisations or workers who are seeking to support community members with presentations may wish to contact us to discuss options for financial assistance.

2.                 Strengths-Based Approaches in Organisations

How do we apply the principles and beliefs that underpin our work with community members in our work within our own organisations and in relationships with other community and government agencies? How do we do “parallel practice”? What does strengths-based leadership and management look like? How can we grow a culture that supports strengths based approaches across a whole organisation?

This stream picks up the conference theme “Weaving the Threads” in acknowledging the many practice traditions being drawn upon in strengths-based approaches. Many of us have been influenced by several of these traditions.  How do these traditions ‘fit’ with each other? What are the hazards/cautions in bringing ideas together from diverse traditions? How do we handle the tensions and contradictions that arise? Given the sometimes sad history of human service work based on classifying, labelling and compensating for “deficits”, how can we avoid unhelpful competitiveness between these emerging “strengths-based” traditions that could be friends?

Voluntary Community Members Participation Fund

 

We hope to provide financial assistance to enable community members to attend the conference and share stories and insights about relating to workers bringing strengths-based approaches to their practice. We expect these community members will be accompanied by the workers with whom they are in relationship and will be supported in a range of ways by these workers. We imagine that some workers/organisations who share our commitment to enabling community members participation may be in a position to make an additional financial contribution to assist community members to attend as guests of the conference. Such a contribution would be completely voluntary in nature. If you are interested in contributing, please contact us.

• Proposals must be submitted using the proforma provided below and preferably emailed to info@lighthouseresources.com.au. If not able to be emailed, the completed proforma needs to be posted to Conference Program Working Party, Lighthouse Resources, PO Box 1103, Sunnybank Hills, Qld. 4109 by 15th June 2006.
• Proposals are required for all presentations.
• Proposals must be submitted typed in English, preferably in Microsoft Word, Arial font, size 12, single spaced.
• Responsibility for accuracy rests with the author.
• All proposals accepted will be published in the program booklet and on the Conference website.
• Registration and payment for the conference are pre-requisite for presenters.

 Download the Abstract Proforma Form

We look forward to responding to your proposals.

Yours sincerely,

Jane Pope, David O’Toole, David Lees and pAul montgomery

Conference Program Working Group