Open Dialogue training – block 1 is complete
More capacity building is underway, with the first 2-day block of the 4-day ‘Introduction to Open Dialogue’ course delivered at the end of April.
Eight local members of the Lived Experience suicide prevention workforce attended the funded training, which offers a person-centred, compassionate and relational approach to working with people experiencing distress and crisis as an alternative to the biomedical way of understanding and responding to those experiences.
Spotlight on Flick Grey – Lived Experience Trainer and Facilitator in the Open Dialogue approach
Flick (she/her/we) has been active in fostering alternatives to biomedical/carceral responses to distress/extreme states for nearly 20 years. Currently working as a freelance consultant, supervisor, trainer and researcher, Flick has previously worked in clinical services, peer-run services and academia. Flick describes her peer practice as being grounded in Intentional Peer Support, Alternatives to Suicide and Mad Studies. Her relationship with Open Dialogue (OD) began over 10 years ago while attending a screening of a documentary about Open Dialogue with an eclectic mix of activists, clinicians, researchers, family members and others. Excited by the possibilities for humanising practice and systems transformation, she studied OD for three years in London (2015-7) and travelled the world on a SANE Fellowship (2017-8) exploring the intersection between OD and peer work. Since returning to Australia, Flick has practiced OD with dozens of families and networks.
One of the participants described their experience of the first half of this training as “bloody good”, recognising the way the trainers held space in their delivery and very much looking forward to the second half.
Block 2 is scheduled to take place on the 3rd and 4th of June, after which we will conduct a ‘Post training reflection session’ with the trainers and participants exploring people’s experiences with integrating the Open Dialogue approach into their practice.
