Narrative Approaches to Organizational Development: A Case Study of Implementation of Collaborative Helping

• Author: William C. Madsen
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• Date: 01 June 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12212

Narrative Approaches to Organizational

Development: A Case Study of Implementation of

Collaborative Helping

WILLIAM C. MADSEN*

Across North America, community agencies and state/provincial jurisdictions are

embracing family-centered approaches to service delivery that are grounded in streng th-

based, culturally responsive, accountable partnerships with families. This article details a

collaborative consultation process to initiate and sustain organizational change toward

this effort. It draws on innovative ideas from narrative theory, organizational development,

and implementation science to highlight a three component approach. This approach

includes the use of appreciative inquiry focus groups to elicit existing best practices, the

provision of clinical training, and ongoing coaching with practice leaders to build on those

better moments and develop concrete practice frameworks, and leadership coaching and

organizational consultation to develop organizational structures that institutionalize fam-

ily-centered practice. While the article uses a principle-based practice framework, Collabo -

rative Helping, to illustrate this process, the approach is applicable with a variety of

clinical frameworks grounded in family-centered values and principles.

Keywords: Family-Centered Practice; Narrative Theory and Practice; Organizational

Development; Collaborative Helping

Fam Proc 55:253–269, 2016

Across North America, community and government agencies are searching for effective

models that support strength-based, culturally responsive, empowering partnerships

with families. The introduction of new approaches is both a worthy and challenging endea-

vor. This article uses efforts to introduce the collaborative helping framework in a variety

of contexts as an example of ways in which narrative ideas and practices can support imple-

mentation efforts and organizational development in health and human service agencies.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY-CENTERED SERVICES

Family-centered services represent a broad approach to helping families across many

different contexts. While there are varying definitions of family-centered services, there is

general consensus about underlying values and principles.

1

Definitions of family-centered

*Director, Family-Centered Services Project, Watertown, MA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to William C. Madsen, Family-Centered

Services Project, 49 Whitney Street, Watertown, MA 02472. E-mail: madsen1@comcast.net.

1

Over time, the terminology used has shifted from family-based to family-centered to family-driven ser-

vices. Throughout, the commitment to strengths-based, collaborative partnerships has remained stead-

fast. The thing that has changed over time has been an increasing focus on accountability to people

served. The current phrase “family-driven” with its attendant motto of “nothing about us without us” high-

lights the importance of bringing family voice and choice into the center of helping efforts (Duchnowski &

Kutash, 2007). While this article utilizes the phrase “family-centered services,” it refers to an approach to

this work that has consistently emphasized accountability to people served as a core principle of the work

(Waldegrave, Tamasese, Tuhaka, & Campbell, 2003).

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Family Process, Vol. 55, No. 2, 2016 ©2016 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12212

services generally include such descriptors as being committed to cultural responsiveness,

offering a wider range of services, building on family strengths, engaging families on their

own turf, emphasizing family choice in all aspects of planning and care, and offering flexi-

ble funding streams to simplify accessing resources (Allen & Petr, 1996). Fam ily-centered

services represent not just a shift in what services are offered, but how they are offered.

There is a fundamental shift in the attitude with which practitioners approach families,

the relational stance practitioners hold with families, and the ways that practitioners posi-

tion themselves with families. This shift represents a movement from a role of experts

repairing dysfunction to allies helping families envision and develop desired lives with the

active support of their local community, while at the same time supporting safety, perma-

nency, and well-being for youth. While there is recognition of the knowledge held by pro-

fessionals, there is an active search for and utilization of family and community

knowledge. This shift in relational positioning is very congruent with poststructural

approaches and this article applies narrative therapy practices to organizational develop-

ment.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF COLLABORATIVE HELPING

Collaborative helping is an integrated practice framework applicable across many dif-

ferent helping contexts (Madsen, 2009; Madsen & Gillespie, 2014). It has been utilized in

outreach, residential, community-based, inpatient, and outpatient contexts across child

welfare, behavioral health, and health care. It is useful for workers holding both “profes-

sional” and “nonprofessional” degrees. It offers a flexible map to bring family-centered val-

ues and principles into practice in the everyday “messiness” of this work and is designed

to assist families envision desired lives, address long-standing problems, and develop more

proactive coping strategies with the active support of their local communities. Conceptu-

ally, collaborative helping draws from appreciative inquiry (Cooperrider, Whitney, &

Stavros, 2008), narrative therapy (Freedman & Combs, 1996; Freeman, Epston, & Lobo-

vits, 1997; Madigan, 2010; Monk, Winslade, Crocket, & Epston, 1997; Morgan, 2000;

White, 2007; White & Epston, 1990; Zimmerman & Dickerson, 1996), solution-focused

therapy (Berg, 1994; Durrant, 1993; de Shazer, 1985, 1988), motivational interviewing

(Miller & Rollnick, 2013), the “signs of safety” approach to child welfare (Turnell &

Edwards, 1999), and perhaps most importantly, the daily experiences of both frontline

workers and the families they serve.

This practice framework takes a principle-based approach, utilizing a metaphor of “dis-

ciplined improvisation” to help workers pursue their work with a balance of rigor and flex-

ibility. It emphasizes the importance of the attitude or relational stance workers hold with

families. It highlights the importance of the stories that organize people’s lives and is con-

stantly mindful of the ways in which interactions between helpers and families have the

potential to invite the enactment of particular life stories. And it focuses on the power of

inquiry (the process of asking compelling questions) as an important professional tool.

A central feature of this practice framework is the use of collaborative helping maps to

assist workers to think their way through complex situations and facilitate constructive

conversations between workers and families about challenging issues (Madsen, 2011;

Madsen & Gillespie, 2014; Root & Madsen, 2013). The collaborative helping map in its

simplest form consists of four areas of inquiry that are arranged graphically in Figure 1.

Beginning with a Vision of families’ hopes for their future or preferred coping in chal-

lenging times both engages them and sets an agreed upon focus for shared work. The

examination of Obstacles and Supports at individual, relational, and sociocultural levels

fits with an ecological approach. The framing of Obstacles as separate from people draws

on the narrative practice of externalizing, originally developed by White and Epston

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