Editorial

Abstract

I write this editorial for issue 45(2) of the Journal of Family Therapy from sunny Malaga as the International Family Therapy Association 2023 Conference comes to an end.The keynote for the conference was delivered by Pauline Boss, (Boss, 2006, 2021, Boss et al., 2003, family therapist of 40 years, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Speaking about the theory and practice of ambiguous loss, her cross-disciplinary systemic framework for supporting individuals, families and communities facing both clear and unclear loss felt particularly relevant in the aftermath of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Boss challenges the notion of 'closure' after ambiguous loss and argues that we need to support people to develop new rituals, build resilience to tolerate ambiguity and not-knowing, embrace both-and, multiple perspectives and to stay in a curious, creative, meaning-making position while holding new hope for the future. The ways that Boss suggests serve to help find ways through ambiguous loss seem very resonant with the themes of a number of the papers in this issue. (One of her papers was published in one of our partner journals which you have open access to -do check out that paper and other recent papers in the Access the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy and the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy via the AFT website).Of course, the recent earthquake is not the only disaster or circumstance of trauma, natural or person-made with which the world is currently wrestling, and part of Boss's talk addressed how we might collaborate beyond professional boundaries to use our scarce resources most effectively to the greatest good.Papers in this issue of the Journal of Family Therapy have as their focus children and families, foster and kinship carers, relationships where someone identifies as transgender, therapists' experiences, and tools we use to evaluate our practice.The first paper by Loren Whitehead and colleagues (2023) addresses foster and kinship carer perceptions of the long-term effectiveness of Fostering Changes, a relationally based evidence-informed training programme. The findings suggest that, while the training programme was viewed as providing effective and relevant training, carers also required ongoing clinical services to support them to meet the challenging needs of the children they were caring for.The next paper has as its focus children with autism and their parents and carers. Lauren Burton and Claudine Fox (2023) report findings from a service evaluation for families referred to family therapy after their child had been given a diagnosis of autism. They highlight the enormous need to develop post-diagnostic services for families.Two papers follow with a focus on adults. The first by Nicola Gunby and Catherine Butler (2023) address relationships when one person identifies as transgender. They present a systematic review of the qualitative literature which produced themes around experiences of stig...