School counselling as community work [Narrative community work in schools]

Abstract

This presentation explores narrative work in secondary schools as a vehicle for creating collective knowledge, and empowering young people to support one another. Narrative approaches de-privatise and deindividualise people’s experiences of difficulties, and reposition clients from “sufferer”’ of problems to “experts” on how to overcome them (White, 2007; White & Epston, 1990). Aspects of practice illustrated include “undercover” teams, which enlist a group of students to support culture change in a school (Winslade & Williams, 2012). A unique practice sitting at the intersection of narrative counselling and narrative community work will also be described, wherein helpful ideas from the counselling room about problems students experience are written into collaboratively-generated informational brochures that are made available to the school community as a whole. Via the facilitation of a school counsellor, students are thus able to share their insights and strategies (anonymously) in support of peers who may be experiencing similar problems.