2007-no-1Dear Reader,

G’day!

We hope 2007 is treating you kindly so far.

The beginning of this year has been a busy one here at Dulwich Centre! Our International Summer School of Narrative Practice has just been held and participants in various training programs are still filling the building.

We are pleased here to introduce you to a range of papers by authors whom we have never published before. The field of narrative practice seems to be thriving and we thought an issue on ‘New Voices’ would be appropriate for the new year.

The first paper, by Anne Kathrine Løge from Norway, introduces an approach to working with divorced parents to ‘disarm the conflict’ and assist them in developing skills of collaboration in relation to parenting their children. The second piece, by Ron Nasim from Israel, describes innovative group work in a psychiatric day clinic. We are confident that readers will find both these papers very helpful as they describe effective and creative work in complex contexts.

The second section of the journal consists of two papers about ways of working with queer folk from religious backgrounds. Sekneh Hammoud-Beckett describes ground-breaking work with two Australian Muslim brothers, one of whom is gay. Her work provides new metaphors and approaches to the question of ‘coming out’ which are then taken up in the next paper by Charles Jasper. Charles’ piece conveys material generated from narratively informed interviews with gay men from Christian backgrounds in the USA. We trust that anyone interested in considerations of identity, religion, spirituality and/or sexuality will find these pieces resonant and challenging.

The third part of this edition features the first two interviews by Virginia Leake (who works here at Dulwich Centre Publications). These interviews took place on a trip to Israel and the Palestinian Territories. They describe the hopeful work of two organisations, one Israeli, one Palestinian, which are dedicated to finding a way out of the cycles of violence in that part of the world.

Finally, the focus turns to Africa, and more particularly to Rwanda. It is now almost thirteen years since the genocide took place in Rwanda. We think our readers will be moved to hear of the work of organisations which are supporting survivors and continuing to seek justice.

It is a diverse collection from six different countries.

On a sadder note, we would like to mention here Emily Sued, who has for many years been a dear friend and colleague to us here at Dulwich Centre. Emily passed away recently. She will be dearly missed and always remembered.

Warm regards,

Cheryl White