Context magazine
In this edition
Editorial
Editorial – Mark Chidgey and Jo George
Feature articles
Kinship and community: Harnessing the power of family group conferencing for children in care – Alexandra Benyon
Heart and hope: The meaning of home for children and young people in foster care – Andrea Warman
Holding onto hope, talking and being with heart. Towards building home: Centring narratives of gain and moving away from narratives of loss – Shakila Emmanuel and Anees Fatima Hakim
From herd to community: How horses inspire hopeful journeys in residential childcare – Deborah Judge
Exploring art-making in therapeutic group work with unaccompanied, asylum-seeking, young men – Lucy Gorell Barnes
Complex caring systems: Systemic work within residential childcare – Abi Jordan and Samantha Hogan
Having to be systemic to survive: Personal and professional stories of being in care – a conversation – Susan Crawford and Mark Chidgey
Be-longing – Emma Palmer
The sleeping giant: Working systemically with sleep issues – Christy Reynolds
Reports and reviews
EFTA-NFTO Norway: Family therapy and systemic practice in Norway – Lennart Lorås
Looking back and forwards – Gillian Petrie
Association news
Context overview
Context is the Association for Family and Systemic Psychotherapy (AFSP)’s well-respected bi-monthly magazine. It’s a valued, accessible, user-friendly resource and forum for qualified family and systemic psychotherapists, students and other health professionals interested in systemic practice.
The magazine is packed with news and views on the issues that matter to professionals working with families, adults and children in a therapeutic environment. A space to share and stimulate therapeutic ideas, it features the latest events, publications, training, conferences and workshops.
Accessing Context
Context is included with AFSP membership. Full, retired and student members can access digital versions of previous issues back to 2010 below, and have the option to receive new issues in the post. Those with free student memberships can only access digital copies.
Non-members can subscribe to receive print copies of Context. This costs £55 per year if you live in the UK or £79 if you live overseas.
You can also buy individual issues. Digital versions cost £7.50. Print versions cost £11.50 if you live in the UK or £15.50 if you live overseas.
If you haven’t received a copy of Context you should have received in the post, please let us know within 1 month so we can send you another copy.
Writing for Context
Interesting in writing an article for the magazine? We welcome views on family and systemic psychotherapy from everyone, regardless of where you are in your career or what your background is.
Back issues
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Ged Smith
Loneliness and connection in the therapy room – Jill Michiels and Dirk De Wachter
How to navigate family therapy conferences: Or FOMB(o)P (fear of missing a better presentation) – The Systemic Scribblers
Stealing attention from the body and the personal – Jo Warren
Emotionally focused family therapy (EFFT): Restoring connection and promoting resilience – James Furrow and Sarah McConnell
Systemic psychotherapy and EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing): A story of mutual influence – Rita McGrath
On becoming a therapist: A counsellor’s journey towards maintaining person-centred ideas whilst training as a systemic therapist – Luke Cousins
Inviting change through community expertise: Embedding a systemic model of practice in the relationships between volunteers and young people – Rachel Lythe
How might clinical psychologists use systemic theory and practice in a child and adolescent mental health service? Lucy Jones
We need to talk about youth violence – Naomi Beet
“A lot of different flowers make a bouquet”: The 4th autism and systemic practice conference, July 2023 – Reviewed by David Steare and Monica Whyte
South West AFT annual conference 2023: Dillington relocated. Every Brilliant Thing: A theatrical performance. Angus Crutchfield
Matthew Ganda – Sharon Evans
A ‘draw up’ of reflections about the ‘Building bridges for peace’ AFT conference 2023 – Ruth Imber
JoFT goes digital – Sarah Helps
AFT news
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Danny McGowan and Abigail Bode
Class without the tea – TK Vincent
Voicing the untellable: Inviting class to the conversation – Vicki Kitts
Know your place – Abigail Bode
‘We need to talk about capitalism’ – class and curiosity – Danny McGowan
Healing – a function of a connected community? – Angela Fell
Black and brown people have no class – Telema Jack
Class, inequality, and family therapy: *From 7/84 to 1/90 – Jim Wilson
What did the social graces do for us, and why is therapy hiding from politics? – Nicola Bowden-Jones
On a journey towards authentic anti-racist practice: Reflections from the Surge Team in Hackney – Amandine Mourière, Rebecca Infanti-Milne, Aaron McDonald, Cherelle Johanson, Claudia Rodrigues and Michelle Simmons-Safo
Introducing multi-systemic therapy – Amy Jackson
Review of an audio presentation of the book Poverty Safari: Understanding the Anger of Britain’s Underclass by Darren McGarvey – Neisha Lowe
AFT diversity working party: Meet the class, employment and income group – Jennifer McKinney, John Burnham, Carole Rich and Donna Wright
The centre for individual and family identity: Establishing a service for families created through donor conception and surrogacy and others involved in this process – Sharon Pettle
AFT webinars: Setting out the landscape – donor conception and surrogacy – a webinar by Sharon Pettle, 15 January 2024 – Report by Kirsty Fallow
Billy Hardy – friends in dialogue (Billy Hardy –1961-2024) – Leah Salter and Kieran Vivian-Byrne
Branching out: Derbyshire AFT (DAFT) – Nicola Herring
An interview with Jeff Young, author of No Bullshit Therapy: How to engage people who don’t want to work with you, 2023, Routledge UK – Ged Smith and Jeff Young
Systemic practice research survey: Mapping training activities across the UK – Naureen Whittinger
AFT news
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Esther Usiskin Cohen and Ana Draper
Reflexive rationalities for everyday leadership – part 1: The lens of theory – Christine Oliver
Leadership coaching with a systemic twist: A coach’s perspective, part 1 – tuning into the systems conditions within which coaching takes place – Barbara McKay
Felting into leadership: Wefts, wisps, and entanglements – Rozen Rauf and Karen Partridge
Tavistock’s D24 course: Child, adolescent and family mental wellbeing multidisciplinary practice – reflections of a new course lead – Jason Maldonado-Page
“Tread softly, breathe peacefully, laugh hysterically” (Nelson Mandela): Navigating the treacherous land of systemic leadership during a pandemic…and other tales – Heleni-Georgia Andreadi
Moments as a form of leadership – Ana Draper, Rachel Scott and Elisa Marcellino
How do we teach systemic leadership management and consultation? Reflections on delivering such a course – Esther Usiskin Cohen, Ngozi Anuforo and Hazel Hyslop
Embracing the embroidery: Black women leading authentically within multifaceted narratives – Antonia Ogundayisi
Reflexive rationalities for everyday leadership – part 2: The lens of practice – Christine Oliver
Leadership coaching with a systemic twist: A coach’s perspective, part 2 – tuning into the person and the professional as an influential voice in the system – Barbara McKay
IFTA Congress 2024, Toyama, Japan – Shan Tate and Chip Chimera
Branching out: Manchester AFT – Lisa Nicolson
Update on ‘Independent review of gender identity services for children and young people’
AFT news
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Carole Payne
Therapy at one remove – using the professional network to work with a young person in care through correspondence – Helen Stead
Conversations on gender and sexuality – Ali Knight, Matei Dudu, Patience Akande, Rosie Buckland and Sarah Favier
On being a sibling: Resonances in research – Faye McDonell
Decolonising systemic constellations – Sonya Welch-Moring
‘Roses’ – practising independently as a family therapist: What happens when amidst these beautiful rose petals – we find thorns? – Rory Worthington
The positioning of the ballerina: A playful narration of reading about the positioning of the therapist – Ruth Imber
Experimenting with action-oriented reflecting-team techniques – Pete Brown, Shayo Bryan-Fenelon, Gemma Kelly, Mallika Verma and Hanna Crease
Talking about “noise”: The challenges of working systemically with complex trauma, issues of context, epistemology, and paradigm – Arlette Kavanagh
Growing together: A tree of life informed sibling intervention – Amy Johnson and Manus Moynihan
Who will we be to each other? A letter to my future, fully-qualified systemic psychotherapist self – Alexa Smith
Report of a West Country AFT workshop located at Bath City Farm offering mental, emotional and spiritually enriching possibilities for nature-based systemic work – Angus Crutchfield
Adolescent self-harm in the family: A systemic attachment perspective, presented by Ramón Karamat-Ali, hosted online by Derbyshire Association of Family Therapy (DAFT) on 23 May 2024 – Report by Nicola Herring
Listening, learning and reflecting: The AFT community’s response to Context 191
AFT news
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Prudencia Woode, Emma Louise Short, Shakira Maknoon, John Burnham, Sharon Evans and Jill Morgan
Ancestral re-membering in the systemic community – John Burnham and Anne-Marie Reid
Systemic social location wheel – Shakira Maknoon, Emma Louise Short, Prudencia Woode and Sharon Evans
Discursive vigilance: A proposal for enhancing racial and cultural reflexivity in systemic practice – Raphael Cadenhead
Race: The cornerstone to connection, relationships and change – Heidi P. Karamat Ali and Ramón Karamat Ali
POWERS – emerging spaces for discourses on power – Shakira Maknoon, Emma Louise Short, Prudencia Woode, John Burnham, Jan Lampard, Gurminder Neta, Jill Morgan, Samuel Angus and Sharon Evans
‘Race’ matters: Widening the gaze – a self-reflexive account of personal and professional stories when working with organisational systems in CAMHS – Farzana Lina
Navigating ‘White Fragility’ in systemic practice: Clinical supervision and management – a personal reflection – Kenyah Nyameche
Raw earth – handbuilding and beyond: An artist tutor’s experience of being with(in) clay – Munirah Olton
Stepping back and/or stepping forward: Motion in poetry – dancing to the beat of systemic thinking and towards collaborative authorship – Prudencia Woode and John Burnham
Poetry – Shakira Maknoon
European Family Therapy Association (EFTA); National Family Therapy Organisations (NFTO)
Troyes, France, 30th May – 1st of June 2024 – Shan Tate and Ged Smith
Branching out: AFT Cymru – Clare Cribb
AFT news
Contents snapshot
Editorial – Pete Brown and Miriam Chachamu
Towards a theory of temperament in systemic therapy: Building a bridge between temperament and attachment in the systemic domain – Pete Brown
I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I understand: A creative, needs-led approach for parents – Linda Hoggan and Carmen Kane
The pizza technique: A fun activity to challenge negativity – Miriam Chachamu
Understanding therapeutic parenting: A trauma-informed approach – Sair Penna
A Westminster weave – from parent programme participant to systemic supervisor – Sara Thomas
Possibility parenting: Systemic ideas in practice – Paul Hackett
Including infants in systemic family therapy and parenting approaches – Sally Fraser
The journey of parenting: A narrative approach to exploring changing identities, resources and hope for parents and carers – Orla Jordan
Being fair as a parent is hard: Parenting siblings of children with additional needs – Barbara Babcock
Interweaving PACE principles and systemic ideas: To provide an emotional anchor for parenting work – Joanna Latham and ‘Michelle’
They think it’s all over: Searching for the invariant parenting prescription – Gary Robinson
Outside in to inside out: Bringing the body into a systemic approach to parenting work – Charlotte Jaggar
EFTA: Montenegro – Jola Dojic
A tribute to Donna Dell Smith, who died aged 92 on 12 August 2024 – Jane Batchelor, Jan Cooper, Judith Lask, Angela Markham, Isobel Reilly, Jacqui Sayers, Margaret Sykes, Shan Tate and Amy Urry
Ana Draper, Elisa Marcellino and Samantha Thomson (2024) Systemic and Narrative Work with Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children: Stories of Relocation, published by Routledge – Review by Eleanor Osman
Branching out: AFT North East – Justin Woodward-Court, Caroline Waugh, Tonia Forster and Stephen Harrison
Feedback from the AFT conference
AFT news – end of year report
Asian Academy of Family Therapy (AAFT) annual conference 2024, Shanghai: Rethinking “mental health” in the context of radically changing familial and social norms – Sarah Helps
Letter to Context
Also of interest
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