An understanding of how adherence to common-sense boundaries (and other practicalities) assists growth is very important in our therapeutic support work.
Here I introduce the notion of good-will dialogue – or – our good will confidentiality contract. I first came across it during a course in supervision I did with Robin Shohet and I thought it fitted well with the work with families in the Focus Group.
It is of some importance in respect of boundaries and confidentiality and I believe that it is helpful for anyone in training to get what it means.
The essence of good-will is that, working in tightly-knit communities and extended families, it is impossible to hermetically seal information inside cells of practitioners – particularly if those practitioners include people who are rooted in the experience of imprisonment.
In fact, obsession about confidentiality and information sharing may harm the matching response that we desire when supporting vulnerable families.
But it is possible, and highly desirable, to speak in a genuine, respectful, positive and good-will way so that the well-being of others will be enhanced.
This is, of course, unenforceable. Observance to it depends on the camaraderie and commitment of the group who make it.
I have found, though, that people encourage others and after some time together the good-will can actually turn into solution focused rather than problem focused talk!
But that is not the only application. Here are a few others:
1. We have mentioned good design already. In good design, creativity, conservation of energy, working hard while preserving enthusiasm and commitment, maintaining liveliness, vitality, spontaneity, and the role of meaning – that is, what we find meaningful, i.e. what moves us – are all present.
2. As I said already, most people want their problem solved! So problem solving – gleaning the essentials of issues – examining own prejudices, sticking to the point, the feedback loop i.e. encouragement of two-way knowledge flow so that plans/programmes can be altered, checking relevance of work etc. all need to be included.
3. At the start of this Chapter I suggested that as we grow older we tend to get wiser. But that doesn’t mean that wisdom is the preserve of those of us who are of mature years.
Young people’s honesty has a wisdom of its own (or, perhaps, young people’s wisdom has an honesty of its own) which can be unsettling for older people who – even though increasing in wisdom – may have picked up a few harmful prejudice tributaries on the long and meandering river of life.
The importance of wisdom and how it can be fostered needs to run like a thread through the fabric of the training. This is done by having facilitators who can recognise and affirm wisdom in the different modules of any courses undertaken.
4. We mentioned sticking to the mission and vision already and there are always ethical considerations that are expected from staff that work with very distressed people implied in such statements, as well as the constitutions of organisations.
5. In the kind of courses that we are putting on – and with the participants that we have in our groups, there may be a need for a few sessions on learning to learn. This is because people who are training may have left school early and been away from formal education for many decades. (Actually, even though I have had a lot of formal education, I did a learning-to-learn programme once and I found it brilliant).
Finally, for organisations that wish to offer true comprehensive training to people who aim to have leadership or management roles the following topics (6 and 7 below) may be included – though these will often have been done on other courses.
6. Recording work done is becoming more and more important – and is vital for ongoing funding. Report writing, filing, using modern technology to its optimum, following office procedures correctly, security, data protection, and the link between common sense office procedures and boundaries, may be necessary in some courses.
7. All aspects of standard office procedures and organising, planning, and undertaking programmes whether formal or informal. Estimating expenditure of money, estimating how much time to allocate to events, programmes, activities, etc. are always useful skills – though they are not for everyone!