Welcome from the 2020 Edition

John Brooker, Carey Glass and Annie Bordeleau

The continuing development of InterAction

SFiO and SFCT before us, have produced InterAction uninterrupted, from print to online, since 2008. Twelve years’ worth of high-quality Solution Focus organisational content in one place is a valuable contribution to the Solution Focus community. It is a global collaborative effort and to be part of this is exciting for us.

Enabled by our new website design, we start the next transformation with this edition, towards The InterAction Collection of Solution Focus Practice in Organisations.

Monthly rolling content to build each edition

First, rather than launch an edition every six months, we will use rolling content to continuously create the InterAction collection. For this volume, we will publish two new features in August 2020 and every following month, building to one complete edition at the end of the year.

We consider this format to better suit the bite-sized time frames that you have for reading in the modern world. It also allows SFiO to publish the best organisational thinking from our contributors as soon as possible. We believe we should reward their ideas and generosity by publishing the material quickly to organisations and the SF community.

A treasury of practice for Solution Focus in Organisations

Second, in small steps, we will grow eventually to become a treasured collection of SF in organisations.

In this edition, we move from a traditional sequential journal structure to a more straightforward click format. So, instead of clicking through each article, you can find all the content by clicking from the page you are viewing. Over time you will be able to click on the author’s name and see everything they have written, or click on the article to find similar content, etc. The possibilities are fantastic.

Interact with us!

We are grateful to be part of such a vibrant and generous community. As well as your material contributions to InterAction, your financial contributions have enabled us to update the web platform and use the services of a professional editing company to edit our videos and audios quicker and reduce the voluntary workload. You are welcome to make a small financial contribution in order to support SFiO in creating a full library of SF resources and enable further events and initiatives that connect SF practitioners worldwide.

We now invite you to interact with us, the editing team, to share your thoughts, work and ideas for future editions. If you have something you would like to submit or just a sense of something fresh, we can include, let us know. We can help you with language and with the technicalities of video and audio. Email us at zoom@sfio.org.

In this edition

It is a pleasure, in this edition of InterAction to share:

FOUR INSPIRING STORIES FROM AN EDUCATIONAL PERSPECTIVE: 

• “Focus on the 80%” - A pupil and staff from Beechen Cliff, a state school in Bath (UK), explain how they have been using Solution Focus to improve mental health among pupils. Remarkable, yes, for the success they are having. More remarkable because much of that success comes from trusting pupils to use the Solution Focus approach and to assume responsibility to develop the initiative. Even more exciting news is that the school plans to train all employees in the Solution Focus approach
• “Being captain of their boats” - Liselotte Baeijaert (Belgium) provides an insight into how she worked with young people at a charitable school for hotel workers, on a small island in Indonesia. She explains how she fused constellation work, movement, breathing and Solution Focus to develop the life skills of these young people
• “There is no roof on top of it” - In this discussion, Tara Gretton (UK) and Katrin M. Berger (Germany) explain their aims for establishing the new ‘Solution Focus in Schools’ Network and provide inspiring examples of SF use in schools. An interesting aspect of the network is that they welcome older pupils as well as teachers and practitioners
• “Drawing people out to be a better person” - In the last of our school features, Nic Vidot, (Australia) recently retired principal of a senior school, relates how he used SF to improve performance continuously in his school.

LEADING

• “How to build large scale change” - In her article, Marika provides two insightful practical tools for leading in large scale change.
• “I’ll be honest - it’s Solution Focus” - In this interview Michele Orr (Australia) relates her story about leading a mental health team during the crisis. Open it now.
• “SF Formats to Stay Connected” - Keeping with the crisis theme, Annie Bordeleau, (Germany) shares interactive online formats, based on how SFiO led successful ‘Fika the Crisis’ calls from March until July 2020. Open it now.

BOOK REVIEW

• “Make Life Simple” - In our book review, Wendy Van den Bulck (Belgium) reviews Andrew Gibson’s (UK) latest Solution Focus book, ‘Make Life Simple’.

GLOBAL MEETUPS

• “Learning from our own diversity” - Biba Reboji (Slovenia/UK) discusses with a group consisting of 22 different cultures, how SF can be used in different organisational and cultural contexts.
• “If I can, you Can Too!” - Annette Gray (Australia) explains from personal experience, how ‘Can Too’, a charity, is solution-focused in how it works.

There is a lot of valuable material for you to watch, hear and read in this edition and the upcoming monthly releases. For those who like to listen or read on the go, we have made audios from each of the videos. We trust you will find this of value. See you in August!

Enjoy!