This year has seen us delivering at conferences in Canada (SFU), England (UKASFP), Bulgaria (EBTA) and Germany (AGIS). In Germany at the AGIS (Association for German International Schools) conference in Hanover in January, BRIEF not only delivered a two-day pre-conference workshop (in collaboration with Denise Yusuf) but also opened and closed the conference – a true honour.
During the course of this year one article has appeared in print ‘Briefly does it’ which was an invited contribution in ‘Making Waves: Solution Focused Practice in Europe’, the EBTA book celebrating 25 years of the organisation. As it happens we were present at EBTA’s birth, or at least Harvey was, and we have attended pretty well every one of the annual conferences since then, presenting at most. Progress is being made on the book about Solution Focus in Schools (Ajmal and Ratner) and with luck we will see this useful addition to the SF in Schools literature emerging during the course of 2019. Who knows even Evan’s long-standing bottom-drawer manuscript may see the light of day in 2019 and Chris has two forthcoming chapters in books edited by Korzbyski and by Michael Hoyt. We have been pleased to see translations of Brief Coaching into Finnish and 100 Key Points and Techniques into Chinese being published during the course of the year. The Chinese version of 100 Key Points is already into its third printing! 2018 has also seen Routledge commissioning a book to be edited by our close friend and collaborator (and Evan’s wife) Denise Yusuf exploring the applications of SF with children and young people around the world. She has some brilliant contributors. And of course the BRIEF blog published weekly on our Facebook page has rolled on into its fourth year!
During the course of 2018 BRIEF trainers have presented in Canada, Belgium (both at the University Colleges of Leuven-Limburg and at the world famous Korzbyski Institute in Bruges), the Netherlands, Germany, Korea (a first invitation), USA, Japan (also a first), Finland (3 times), Ireland and Wales and the Channel Islands (Guernsey), Bulgaria, Singapore (not our first invitation but with a new organisation), Cyprus and finally Peru. In September Evan and Denise worked with the Latin Centre for Brief Therapy in Trujillo with a fantastic group. They run a four-year training programme and the first cohort has just graduated – congratulations to them. In addition we received a group of social work students at BRIEF who came with Kristin Bolton, their professor, from Wilmington, North Carolina and as every year for the past 10 years we welcomed Linda Metcalf’s wonderful group from Texas for four days in July. We are already looking forward to their next visit and Kristin will also be returning next year with a new group.
Nearer to home in the UK we have this year delivered training in Strabane and Portadown in Northern Ireland, in Cardiff, Llandaff, Anglesey and Swansea (3 different commissioners) in Wales, and then in Salford, Maidenhead, Horspath (Oxfordshire), Addlestone, Twickenham, on the Wirral, in Esher, Oxford, Brighton, Northampton, Ipswich, Bexley, High Brooms (Kent), Bristol, Falmouth, Peterborough, widely across the County of Essex and finally in Leicester. In addition we have continued our long-standing work in a Camden Secondary School and have been able to maintain our commitment to offering a substantial amount of ‘pro-bono’ therapy.
So all in all a busy and productive year and thank-you to you all again for giving us the opportunity to keep doing what we enjoy doing, talking about, thinking about, writing about and practicing the Solution Focused approach.
With best wishes for the Christmas holidays and the New Year from all of us at BRIEF.
