There's probably four books I've saved from my time in grad school, minus the narrative stuff that was not from any class. The books I held onto include; McGoldrick & Hardy's Re-Visioning Family Therapy, Goldenberg & Goldenberg's classic, and probably my favorite, Collaborative Therapy with Multi-Stressed Families by Bill Madsen. All from Dr. Amy Tuttle's classes I might add.
From time to time I am asked by people I work with to help provide assessment documentation for various social work agencies or the courts. When I first started to write these types of documents it was always my intention to do a strength based assessment rather than a "professional discourse" assessment that often times leaves no room for the clients experience or words. I always tried to honor the clients experience when writing these documents, but felt that I was missing something. Several months back in one of Anne Arnold's consultation groups the topic was narrative documents. It was during this group that Anne read some examples of professional documents she had written where the clients voice was moved front and center.
This week I was asked to write a document for a client for an agency and rather than doing just a strength based assessment, I asked if I could include her words in the document. She agreed, and I went back to the Madsen's book to help guide my questions. In the book Madsen has great examples of questions that can be asked around professional documents. The collaboration went great and we were able to put together a great document detailing her experience of putting a family back together, change, and a good and healthy life. If you don't have Bill Madsen's book I highly reccommend you pick up a copy. It's a vision changer. Or better yet, new consultation groups are forming at the Narrative Project of Orange County where you can come learn how to do these types of documents in person. Ask me for details.
Recent Comments