Solution-focused letter writing has been used to provide clients a means of connecting sessions, focusing on strengths, and working toward positive change. In addition, the therapeutic use of letter writing may help therapists themselves refocus on hope. This article details how solution-focused letter writing was used in a university-based practicum to both facilitate change with clients and train beginning therapists. Letter writing was helpful to team and therapist as well as to clients. The use of therapeutic letter writing to facilitate change for clients has been widely documented, both in the narrative (Epston, 1994) and the solution-focused traditions (Nunnally & Lipchik, 1989; Shilts & Ray, 1991). Letters are labeled therapeutic when they are client-centered, future-oriented, hopeful, and realistic (Goldberg, 2000). Written to enhance the positive aspects of face-to-face therapy, letters summarize meetings, link people and events, contain metaphoric language, and help turn ideas into interventions. Through hearing and reading scripted reflections and suggestions, clients can validate, expand, and engage in auxiliary
Based upon the lessons learned and the educational materials generated from a doctoral course on qualitative data analysis, a group of doctoral students, their professor, and a linguistics consultant launched an on- going project to create a series of reusable learning objects designed to help other groups of students and professors learn how to analyze qualitative data. The results of the first six months of this project are shared, as the team describes how they have begun to use instructional design and software applications to create a digital learning environment in the form of a series of activities engineered to help analysts learn how to master grounded theory open coding.
This article describes a 15-month university-community collaboration that was designed to fast-track children out of foster care. The developers of the project initiated resource-oriented "systems facilitations," allowing wraparound professionals and families to come together in large meetings to solve problems and find solutions. Families also participated in strength-based brief-therapy sessions. The authors describe the history, structure, and process of the project, and they provide a case study to illustrate the approach and exemplify the kinds of changes that occurred throughout the system. In the final section of the article, the authors reflect on what they learned about their university-community partnership, what they would do differently the next time, and the implications of such larger-system involvements for American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy's Core Competencies.
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