Among the new resources featured are Change By Design; a set of 60 cards with questions that challenge us to think about how we can enact shared leadership in our groups and organisations. Deep Speak is another card set that features the power of questions – this one with 120 cards designed to open up dynamic conversations with young people about things that matter. Growing Well is a highly original kit made up of cards and scaling pads for engaging with our own mental and emotional wellbeing. A long-awaited resource for mental health professionals.

 

In our ‘Coming Soon’ section you can also read about all the exciting new publications that are scheduled to come off the press in 2006. Stay tuned to SOON for updates and profiles throughout the year.

 

This year’s catalogue is again full of useful hints for using the resources but also features lots of new information including a two-page spread about our ever-evolving bookshop, our consultancies and displays, as well as our expanded workshop program for 2006.

 

Look out for it in a letterbox near you.

 

Human service organisations come in many shapes and sizes with different structures, management styles, and visions about how to provide effective services for clients. Working with Human Service Organisations builds on the growing realisation that for many human service workers the greatest challenge is dealing with their employing organisation rather than their direct work with clients.

For clients too, the organisation is often a somewhat mystifying source of  authority with its own peculiar rules and expectations. Front-line workers constantly walk the line between the hopes and fears of their clients and the expectations and requirements of the organisation.

So, how can this book help? Its author, Fiona Gardner, with more than 20 years experience working with human service organisations, says that it’s about sharing ideas.

‘Ideas about how we as workers can be active and dynamic in our relationships with the human service organisations we work and engage with.

 

‘Professional training tends to focus on the skills and knowledge needed for working with clients towards change. How to negotiate such change in the context of the organisation is not always so clear.’

 

Fiona’s hope is that the ideas and tools presented in the book will encourage workers to wrestle with the inevitable dilemmas of organisational life in a way that is congruent with their values as human service professionals.

 

Fiona Gardner has a long association with St Luke’s and Innovative Resources. She joined the agency in 1993 to work with the Policy, Planning and Research Unit. As part of this work, she was commissioned to carry out an evaluation of the St Luke’s service model. Her extensive evaluation, which grew out of reflective conversations with staff and clients, became an important source of material for Beyond Child Rescue, co-authored by Di O’Neil and Dorothy Scott, first published by Allen & Unwin in 1996 then by Innovative Resources in 2003.

 

Fiona’s interest in Jungian psychology led to her co-authorship of  Shadows, published by Innovative Resources in 2002 and recently released in an expanded edition as Shadows and Deeper Shadows.

 

 

Available now at Innovative Resources

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2005

ISBN: 019555303 9  Softcover, 272 pages

Co-facilitator My Friend the Pen

 

In October 2005, Innovative Resources hosted its popular My Friend the Pen workshop at the Chinese Museum in Bendigo. My Friend the Pen is a two-day feast of creative writing possibilities that covers a diverse range of writing styles including poetry, letter-writing, journalling, micro-stories and narratives of all sorts. Participants discover an array of ideas to use with their clients, students, communities and organisations, while experiencing the sheer, gut-level pleasure of their own creativity.

Participants in the October workshop included counsellors, psychologists, youth workers, mental health professionals and secondary school teachers, travelling from every corner of Australia (and a couple from just around the corner).

 

For many, the chance to break free of the restraints of report and essay writing and to discover their innate creativity was an uplifting and often emotional experience. My Friend the Pen is about sharing ideas, but also about how those ideas might translate into the participants’ day to day work with people. It’s exciting to see the ideas bouncing off the walls, but a true priviledge to be part of such a generous outpouring of experience and creativity.

 

One of the ways we free ourselves up for two days of writing is to throw convention out the window. There are no rules. Forget spelling – forget punctuation – forget writing on the lines – hey, we even encourage people to write on the table cloths! Here are just some of the things we found scribbled beneath the lolly bowls and biscuit crumbs:

 

Do-able techniques for clients and clinicians.

 

Descriptive moments – slices of experiences.

 

A little fishy has been swimming around in my head for a long time. Today I started to set him free. (accompanied by this beautiful pencil drawing of a fish)

 

‘My Friend the Pen’ – like a great movie brought all my emotions to life.

 

‘I feel full.’

 

I’ve been fed [my creativity] and now I can give food to others.

 

Spark.

 

I love this workshop. The facilitators are inspiring.

 

I came here feeling out of my comfort zone. You eased me into the creative process and made me feel safe. Thanks. I had a strong need to do something for ‘me’ for a change. I feel fulfilled.

 

Good on you, Rat! (in response to the book A Letter to You – a beautiful picture book about the transformational power of letter writing).

 

Groucho Marx

 

Thanks for showing me that the joy of writing is everyone’s.

 

Grandma Limbouras, who retired to bed early, would always take an orange with her.

"Oh, I don't eat it straight away" she explained to us children. "I roll it under the bed and if it comes out the other side I know there's no-one hiding underneath! Then I say my prayers, hop into bed, peel the orange and eat half. The other half I put on Grandpa's side for him to eat when he finally decides to come to bed". Grandpa was an amateur scientist and drove her mad, holed up in the shed half the night with his "experiments".

After many years away, I visited her recently and was amused to see she still went through the same ritual. "I get to eat the whole orange now" she laughed. "Though it’s a funny thing. Seems to me they don't taste half as sweet as they used to."

 

© Liz Turner 2003