Young people are invited to create team-sheets that represent who are the significant people in their lives:

• Who is the goal-keeper in your ‘Team of life’? Who protects your goals?
• Who acts as coach in your life – the person(s) who has taught you the most?
• Who is in your ‘attack’ – who helps you to try to score goals?

and so on.

We then explore the ‘goals’/achievements that their teams have already achieved, and find ways to re-enact these goals and celebrate them.

This creates the possibility for young people to make plans for their futures.

This methodology also makes it possible for young people to speak about difficult times (on and off the sporting field) and ways of responding to hard times.

This workshop will walk people through the Team of Life methodology. If you work with young people who like sports, or if you have ever had any interest in sports and wonder if this could be incorporated into your work, then we look forward to seeing you at this workshop. No prior experience in narrative ideas (or sports!) is required. The methodology has been particularly developed so that it can be put into practice by dedicated community members. We look forward to seeing you there. Let the games begin!

David Denborough works at Dulwich Centre and is the author of Collective narrative practice: Responding to individuals, groups, and communities who have experienced trauma and the editor of Trauma: Narrative responses to traumatic experience. Alongside his work as a community practitioner and teacher, David works as a writer, songwriter, and dramaturge and is particularly interested in how therapists, community workers, and artists can collaborate with communities experiencing significant hardship. David’s recent teaching/community assignments have taken place in Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Australian Aboriginal communities, Palestinian Territories, Bosnia, Israel, and Canada.