The Solution Focused Brief Therapy Toolkit for Youth Workers

Welcome to the "Brief Therapy Toolkit" eBook. This book is crafted as a concise reference guide, complementing my training course under the same title. My goal is to distill the potent principles of solution-focused brief therapy and tailor them specifically for you, the youth worker. By deconstructing the methodology, we aim to reconstruct it in a manner that transitions seamlessly from the therapy room to your youth club, school, or children's home. As a youth worker, you are often the first point of contact in times of crisis. Armed with these tools, you will gain confidence in your approach and be better equipped to make a difference.

Before taking the practice out of the therapy room and into your work environment it's useful to have some idea of the origin of the solution focused approach. In this section I want to offer you a background of some of the key players in it's development. Many of these warrant further investigation if they spark an interest for further study.

• Neuro Lingusistic Programming - Richard Bandler

• Milton Erickson

• Virginia Satire

• Al Koran

• Imsoo Kim Berg and Steve DeShazer

Before we start to take the tools of solution focused therapy out of the therapy room we need to know how it works when it's in there. To do that we'll take a walk through a perfect and very unlikely therapy session.

It almost never happens. However I walk through a session to give a background of how our therapy works. This is background knowledge as far as the toolkit is concerned.

Once I have provided this background then we'll have a better understanding of how we can take these tools into your working life.

At last we are ready to rummage in the toolbox. In practice it's an impossible task to separate these tools but we will attempt to do this for two reasons.

• So that you can rebuild a bespoke toolkit for your profession and role

• To see each tool in isolation before we can adapt it into your own use.

First lets look at a quick summary to give an indication of where we might be heading.

The Miracle Question

“If you were to leave here to day and go home. Tonight while your sleeping a miracle happens and the reason you came to see me has gone away. Because you were asleep you would not know but tomorrow the you wake up what would be different for you?”

In this video I talk about a key component of solution focused therapy, the miracle question.

It's something much better experienced than it is said. We have numerous opportunities to experience and practice this and the variations on this question. The miracle question leaps over obstacles and allows you to consider a solution, a problem free world. It brings an elevated tone to the conversation.

In years of experience I've been stunned how time and time again the clients miracle day is relatively simple and mundane.

But first why and how does it work?

What if we get crazy answers?

Minor Miracles Exercise

We are going to experience the miracle question in action.

In the following exercise you can work with a colleague or work alone by asking yourself to answer the questions and noting your answers.

The idea here is to work with a very minor issue in your life. This might be something thats been irritating you or something that would be an improvement. Decorating a room, a minor family issue such as kids washing dishes.

Spend as much time as is comfortable on this. As the therapist its interesting to take notes as you talk, once complete then exchange roles.

Note: You can use the following notes as a prompt sheet while talking

Adapted Miracle

You will now have an idea of where you might go in a professional situation. Although you have written down your own suggestions be relaxed and free about how you use them.

A pre prepared idea of your miracle question will be essential.

Remember to be the curious inquisitor, focus on solutions and not problems.

Scaling questions are so simple a child can understand them. On a scale of one to ten how, what or when?
However, because of their simplicity the various uses are often overlooked. With a little practice they are adaptable into your working life.

• They can be used to determine a common scale

• They can be manipulate to serve the client

• They can help reduce the issue in the clients mind

• They can set common parameters between client and worker
  
  

Scaling questions are definitely worth some practice in your work, working with young people in particular. They can be worked into everyday conversation in so many ways.

Normalising

Like most of us when we have a problem we can feel isolated and feel that we are the only ones with it.

Normalising helps to bring the issue into the realm of everyday behaviour. Its power is multiplied when the client is talking to a professional i.e. you

In the following video I talk about how we can build normalising into our conversations.

Why does this help?

In all likelihood your client see's you as experienced, certainly in the kind of issues they might be struggling with. In this case, if you can normalise their feelings then it bears more weight.

Reframing Notes

In the notes below you will find some pointers to help you with the reframing process.

Remember the bank robbery story?

Thinking of some of the typical client frames can you change them for more positive ones.

SIMPLE questions

When a conversation might feel it's running out of steam it can be useful to come at your questions from a different angle.

I shoehorned some of my own tactics in these situations into an acronym S.I.M.P.L.E

When ever my clients are hitting a wall then this can be a great and easy to remember resource to call upon.

S - Scaling Question

I - Interpretation

M -Miracle Question

L - Location

E - Emotion

Question Techniques

In this video I talk about the various question techniques found in different walks of life and professions. The categories and names are of no significance but it's helpful to be aware of the different ways of phrasing our enquiries.

Remember you are always the Curious Inquisitor

Feedback

In this video I talk about feedback in a therapeutic session and how that can be applied to a frontline situation, or perhaps not.

Stories, analogies and Language

Being a mental collector of stories and analogy. I have added some links below to some very short and inspirational videos.

These are not mine, they are external content and may contain ads and language that are not attributed to myself - proceed at your own risk. However these are incredibly inspirational stories and always succeed in changing the vibe in the room.

The Donald Driver story

Any Given Sunday

Arnold Schwarzenegger

The Simpsons in Therapy