Views from the Verandah booklet

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www.innovativeresources.org

Authors: Russell Deal with Karen MasmanIllustration & design: Mat Jones

54 CARDS FOR PLANNING AND GOAL SETTING

© S

t Lu

ke’s

Inno

vativ

e R

esou

rces

201

2

www.innovativeresources.org

Authors: Russell Deal with Karen MasmanIllustration & design: Mat Jones

54 CARDS FOR PLANNING AND GOAL SETTING

Views from the Verandah was first published in 2000 by St Luke’s Innovative Resources in collaboration with Farm Management 500. Reprinted in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2012.This edition has new illustrations and design throughout, revised text on the cards, and new text in the booklet. It was published in 2013 by:

St Luke’s Innovative Resources62 Collins Street Kangaroo Flat Victoria 3555 AustraliaPh: 03 5442 0500 Fax: 03 5442 0555Email: [email protected]: www.innovativeresources.orgABN: 97 397 067 466

© St Luke’s Innovative Resources 2013

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Edited by: Karen Masman

ISBN: 978 1 920945 66 4

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Sitting On Your Verandah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Picturing a Hopeful Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8The Complete Set of 54 Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10Ideas for Using the Cards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Spread, Scan and Select . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15Stepping Serendipitously . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Stepping Off the Verandah . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Stepping Towards the Horizon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18Stepping Selectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19Timeframes, Scales and Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20Stepping Into Couples Counselling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Stepping Into Careers Counselling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22Stepping into Coaching and Mentoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23Stepping into Writing and Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Useful Questions to Ask . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Shadow Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28Being Mindful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30House of St Luke’s Anglicare. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Views from the Verandah at Innovative Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

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The original Views from the Verandah card set was inspired by the Farm Management 500’s ‘Vision Photo Kit’. Farm Management 500 was a consultancy service for farming families for nineteen years (it closed in 2010) and the kit was designed by Mike Stephens, who was a director of the organisation at the time.

The original intention behind Views from the Verandah was to create a planning tool that could be used by farming families to build conversations around goals, planning and decision-making. We also wanted a resource that could be used by just about anyone to help talk about short- and long-term life goals.

Rather than using photos of farming-related activities as in Farm Management 500’s kit, we

chose to use cartoon-style bird illustrations commissioned from Central Victorian graphic artist, John Veeken. The result was a set of 60 gently humourous and engaging cards that, over the years, were used in many different countries and human service settings including counselling, education, social work, supervision and management.

Many people reported that the cards immediately opened up conversations about aspirations, purpose, hopes, dreams, plans, goals and meaning. An ‘expert’ was not required to run the activity and the cards did not use jargon or difficult language. Anyone with basic literacy skills could pick up and enjoy using the cards—and they were even translated into Finnish!

IntroductionThe future ain’t what it used to be.Yogi Berra

After 12 years and numerous reprints the editorial team at Innovative Resources felt it was time for a fresh new edition. This was undertaken with some trepidation knowing that many of our loyal customers have a great affection for the original cards. With new illustration and design, revised text on the cards and a brand new booklet of suggestions, we hope the new edition will be embraced both by lovers of the originals and those encountering Views for the very first time.

The illustrations on the new cards communicate a delightfully ‘Aussie’ sense of humour. They are the work of Innovative Resources’ in-house graphic artist, Mat Jones. Under Mat’s very talented hand, each card features a verandah and portrays the rather surprising antics, adventures and emotions of a range of animal characters. And don’t forget to look out for the appearance of a rather mysterious

and somewhat disembodied character who observes all the fun and games going on in each card!

So spread the cards out, open yourself up to their engaging humour, and try out some of the activities and questions contained in this booklet. You may well be amazed by what you learn about yourself and those with whom you share the cards and the conversations.

Russell Deal

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Sitting On Your Verandah

Verandahs are a wonderful architectural invention. They provide shelter from rain and relief from the scorching Australian sun. When guests arrive or bedrooms are otherwise in short supply, verandahs can be slept on. They are ideally suited to hammocks, barbecues, aviaries, potted gardens and herbs, excess furniture, children’s bicycles, the wood supply for the stove and that extra table for Christmas dinner. We even know a number of farmers who park their most treasured possession—their tractor—on their verandah!

Above all, verandahs are the ideal place for watching sunrises and sunsets, or at anytime—day

or night—for contemplating the big questions in life. A verandah is a true ‘liminal’ space; a place of transition, a place of betwixt and between, outside and inside. A verandah is a place that sits just beyond the workplace whether it be the farm yard, the paddocks, the machinery shed, the kitchen or the desk for paying the bills.

Traditional verandahs never had a telephone and many would assert that contemporary verandahs would do well to be declared ‘mobile phone-free zones’ as well.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.Friederich Nietzsche

On your verandah you can pull off your boots, sit in your underwear, put your feet on the railing and think—think about the weather, the news, the political situation, the fortunes of your football team or what might lie just around the corner. Verandahs, by providing some respite from the day-to-day bustle, are places that invite pondering and reflection. They are great catalysts for reshaping our pictures of the future.

From your verandah you can survey the landscape before you:

• What have you achieved?

• What are you most proud of?

• What work has yet to be done?

• What lies in front of you right now?

• What is in the way?

• Is something blocking your view?

• What lies on the horizon?

• What do you have to attend to soon?

• What changes do you think you will be called upon to make?

• What is the next step?

While not everyone is fortunate enough to have an actual verandah, we can all conjure up an imaginary verandah to engage in the exact same contemplation. We can all carry around our virtual verandah to be employed at any time we wish to take stock and map out new terrain to be ploughed, or identify new crops to be planted or harvested.

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Picturing a Hopeful Future

Having something to look forward to indeed provides radiance in our lives. Anticipation can be a wonderful gift, whether it is simply looking forward to a weekend in the midst of a busy working life or looking forward to a significant transition such as marriage, retirement or birth.

Anticipation can make our lives sparkle.But what happens if the anticipation is absent or disappears? Without the sparkle or the radiance of the idea of something around the corner, what is left? The daily grind? The drudge of merely getting through each day?

While for some the practice of living entirely within the present and without reference to the future is

liberating, for others the absence of anticipation can feel like a barren experience.

Sometimes a problem in the present overwhelms us like a fog where there are seemingly no glimmers of light and no expectations that the fog will ever lift.

Most of us know these times. Often, of course, they are short-lived but sometimes the fog can linger and become disabling and debilitating. For some folk these are the times to seek the professional help of counsellors. Sadly for some, the loss of radiance can become the lived reality where anticipation gives way to resignation or despair.

For many professionals, at the heart of counselling and therapy (and, in fact, all human services) is the aim of restoring hope in a positive future. We call this ‘building pictures of the future’. At times, we all need antidotes to doom and gloom. We all need reminders that our relationship with our challenges,

There is one thing that gives radiance to everything. It is the idea of something around the corner.G. K. Chesterton

issues and problems does change; it never stays constant. There may well be unexpected cracks in the darkness that the light can shine through if we look for them.

Views from the Verandah is designed to provide a simple way of noticing the cracks where the light gets in, and wondering what might lie around the corner.

A useful question for building or rebuilding our pictures of the future is: ‘What do you hope for?’ This question is one of the most commonly used questions in solution-oriented counselling and coaching. It sets up an expectation that there is something around the corner, something to anticipate. It is a question that can be asked in anticipation of particular short-term events such as a work meeting or an upcoming family occasion, or it can be used to imagine broad scale, long-term goals such as career planning.

Some years ago a staff member at St Luke’s created the acronym H.O.P.E. It stands for ‘Helping Other Possibilities Emerge’. Building a hopeful picture of the future is all about imagining new possibilities. What better place to imagine new possibilities and build a picture of the future than sitting on one’s verandah?

Views from the Verandah is a simple tool that provides prompts or reminders for what is important in life, what we might want to change and what we hope for. The cards are illustrated with light-hearted visual metaphors that allow us to name our hopes and dreams. They complement the questions we use to build or rebuild optimistic pictures of the future and have the potential to take our thoughts and our feelings to places words and questions sometimes cannot reach.

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• Achievement• Adventure • Art• Balance • Business • Career • Caring• Challenge • Change • Children• Community • Contemplation• Courage• Creativity• Curiosity• Decisions

• Eating Well • Environment• Family • Fitness• Friends• Fun• Gardening • Health• Hobbies• Home• Independence • Leadership• Legacy • Lifestyle• Money • Music

• Optimism • Participation • Partner • Pets• Relaxation • Resilience • Retirement• Security • Sharing Wisdom• Spirituality• Sport• Study • Transport• Travel • Volunteering • Work

Time Frame Cards• 1 week• 1 month • 6 months • 1 year • 5 years • 10 years

The Complete Set of CardsThere are 54 cards in the Views from the Verandah set: 48 illustrated cards featuring a key word, and 6 Time Frame cards.

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Sorry this page is only available in the hardcopy version of this booklet

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Time Frame Cards

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Spread, Scan and Select

The most common way to use the cards is the ‘Spread, Scan and Select’ method. The cards can be spread on a table or on the floor and a selection of the cards made according to a series of carefully chosen questions.

Spread the Views cards out in front of you. Imagine you are sitting on your verandah able to see the landscape in front of you.

• What do I hope for?

• Why is this picture of the future important to me? What values and aims of mine are expressed in my picture of the future?

• How will I know when this hoped for picture of the future has arrived? What will I be thinking, feeling and doing?

• How might my picture of the future affect others?

• On a scale of 1 to 5 how different is my picture of the future from the present (where 1 is very similar and 5 is very different)

• How long will it take to create this picture of the future?

• What are the milestones I can expect to see along the way?

• What are the strengths I will need to draw on to create this picture of the future?

• Will I need any tools or equipment or other resources?

• Who might be able to help me?

• Is there any preparation (such as study) I need to do to get ready for this picture of the future?

Ideas for Using the Cards

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Stepping Serendipitously

An alternative to the ‘spread, scan and select’ method of using Innovative Resources’ card sets is the ‘serendipity’ method. The serendipity method refers to any activity where cards are picked out entirely by chance allowing for surprise and unanticipated reflection. For example, cards can be shuffled and dealt randomly to participants, or they can be spread face down and participants invited to choose one or more cards at random.

• What relevance does this card have for you at present?

• Have there been times in your life when the card has had more (or less) importance?

• Do you imagine it will be important to you in the future? Why?

• Does this card have a ‘message’ for you?

Another random choice option is to invite each participant to choose three cards and then, in addition to the above questions, you can ask:

• How do these three cards relate to each other in your life?

• Are they complementary?

• Which is more important to you? Why is that?

In all random choice activities it is important to provide an element of choice and the ability to swap a card. Sometimes choosing a card purely at random will produce a card that has significant emotional impact that a participant may not want to discuss.

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Stepping Off the Verandah

Surveying the landscape and imaging the future from our verandahs is important. So too is being able to step off our verandahs into a lived future.

At times this stepping into the future occurs with great anxiety and trepidation. We might have a sense of failure from previous efforts to put our plans into action. Our past or present may be a comfort zone, a place of refuge or a haven. We may be reluctant to leave the security of our verandah and step into a future which by definition contains some unknowns.

At other times we may want to run and take a leap into a future that is full of hope and promise. Rather than being shackled to the past we long to be free, to make a fresh start, to go forward in a spirit of excitement and adventure.

Because we know that our own feelings towards our journey into the future can fluctuate wildly, we need to be careful in the assumptions we make about the preparedness of others to imagine the future in the first place and to have the courage to take the first step.

The Views from the Verandah cards can be used in many different ways to both build imagination and mobilise action.

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you anywhere. Albert Einstein

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Stepping Towards the Horizon

When first created, Views from the Verandah was intended to be a planning tool that farming families could use to temporarily

step away from the multitude of everyday decisions that have to

be made, and give some attention to longer-term matters such as succession planning. It was designed with the perception that it is easy to get caught up in day-to-day tasks and to neglect the need for ‘big picture’ goals and plans.

Views from the Verandah was to be an antidote to short-term, myopic ‘doing’. By naming areas of significance in our lives the cards can expose the underlying values that give our lives purpose and meaning, but which, at times, are hard to pinpoint let alone talk about.

So as well as identifying first steps, Views from the Verandah has a role in exploring the bigger existential questions of what we want to achieve from life, the legacy we want to leave behind and how we would like to be remembered.

• What do you see when you look towards the horizon? Where do you want to be in 20 years time?

• Do you want to be remembered for who you as well as what you have done?

• What is the particular legacy you will leave?

• When you look back over your life, what will you be most proud of?

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Stepping Selectively

It can be a relief to remember that the future does come one day at a time. Perhaps the first step need only be a small one? Perhaps it is a step that might start a cascade of successes as subsequent issues are faced and solutions found?

Spread the cards out on a table or on the floor. Choose one particular card that names an immediate priority.

• What is one area of your life where you can make an immediate change?

• What change can you make tomorrow (even if it is a very small one)?

Stepping off our verandah into our front yard is a metaphor for things that are close at hand or, if you like, things that are under our noses or ‘in our face’ right now.

• Is this where you would like to start?

• If you make changes in these areas immediately how do you think this will change your longer-term future?

• Will these first changes flow on to create other changes?

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.Abraham Lincoln

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Timeframes, Scales and Lists

Included in the Views from the Verandah cards are 6 Time Frame cards. These are: 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years. You can use these timeframes, or create

your own, to put your hopes and anticipated changes into a sequence or priority order.

• What do you want to change first and what can wait?

• Can you map out your future journey according to when you want to tackle particular tasks?

• What will be the significant milestones along the way?

• Does one milestone stand out as the most significant?

• Within what timeframe do you anticipate this will occur?

Alternatively, you might consider a scaling exercise that rates the importance of different goals. The Views from the Verandah cards can be used with any of the visual scales found in The Scaling Kit (published by St Luke’s Innovative Resources) to compare the relative significance of different goals.

St Luke’s also developed a paperwork tool called ‘The Column Approach’ which simply builds a series of lists in columns on a single sheet of paper. The lists might be entitled ‘The Issues’, ‘My strengths’, ‘Strengths I Can Borrow’, ‘What Has Been Tried Before’, ‘First Steps’ as well as ‘My Pictures of the Future’. The Views from the Verandah cards or stickers can be used to provide graphical prompts or reminders of what sits on these lists.

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Stepping Into Couples Counselling

The Views from the Verandah cards can be used with couples as part of marriage preparation or in counselling to address

relationship stresses. The cards can be a fun and non-threatening way to get couples talking about what’s important to them and how they might have similar or different goals, plans and strengths.

Invite both partners to choose 3 cards that represent aspects of life that are important to them.

• Why did you choose these particular cards?

• Do the cards you have chosen portray new goals or are they things you have done in the past?

• How often do you want to engage in the activities shown in the cards you have chosen?

• How do your cards differ from those chosen by your partner?

• How are they the same?

• How might you navigate any differing priorities that your selections may reveal?

With simple activities such as that outlined above, each person can be invited to identify cards that name their priorities, and the selections made can then be the focus of discussion or storytelling.

Alternatively, each person might be invited to choose the cards they think the other person would choose for themselves. Or they can be invited to choose cards that represent qualities or strengths they see in their partner. Another way of working with the cards to create enjoyable and illuminating conversation is when cards are chosen at random and each person is invited to rate how important that particular goal or activity is to them.

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Stepping Into Careers Counselling

Since their inception the Views from the Verandah cards have been used in careers counselling. They can be used not only to identify areas of importance in one’s life and future plans, but also to talk about the fulfillment one might want from their employment as compared to the fulfillment they might want from other parts of their life such as family, recreation, hobbies, volunteering, and so on.

Thinking through sources of satisfaction and fulfillment and identifying

different pathways to achieving one’s aspirations can be an important window into career choices and ways to achieve work/

life balance.

Choose a card that represents an aspect of your desired work

• What do you enjoy about this activity?

• Is this something you have always enjoyed?

• What jobs include this quality or activity?

• How might you find out more about this as a potential area of work?

• Can you choose other cards that seem connected with the card you have chosen?

• If you do find employment in the area represented by the card you have chosen, what other cards show areas of your life that might be enhanced or challenged or affected in some way?Feathered

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Stepping Into Coaching and Mentoring

Life coaching and mentoring roles bring their own sets of questions and conversational pathways. But what they have in common with the above

applications is the exploration of the questions: ‘What’s important in your life?’ and

‘What do you hope for?’

Both coaching and mentoring open up conversations and stories about values, beliefs, strengths and purpose. Using the Views from the Verandah cards to name possible areas of significance in one’s life can bring to mind things that may be otherwise overlooked.

Further, they can help unravel the causes of inertia or ‘stuckness’ and the reasons why we may sometimes experience conflict between the different roles we find ourselves performing.

• Can you pick a card that says something about what you would like to be the focus of our conversation today?

• Thinking about what you would like to create more of in your life, what 3 cards can you choose?

• Can you pick cards that say something to you about all or some of the following topics?

Achievement Adventure Balance Challenge Change Goals Gratitude Happiness Meaning Purpose Relationships ResponsibilityService

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Stepping into Writing and Storytelling

The Views from the Verandah cards can also be used as prompts for creative writing and storytelling. Selecting a card by scanning or serendipity can provide a valuable prompt to write or tell a memoir about an event in our lives

and the significance of that element in shaping our identity.

Alternatively, you might want to challenge yourself to see if you can write several short stories or poems about any one card. These can be autobiographical or pure fiction.

• Choose a card and see if you can write or tell four brief stories about that card – a romance, a comedy, a tragedy and a drama.

• Which of these stories has particular resonance for you?

• Choose a ‘card of the day’ or ‘card of the week’ and use it as a prompt for writing or journalling about that subject regularly for a period of time. Feel free to be creative with drawings, collages and scrapbooking.

• Choose a card and find a quote or a poem that uses this word. Write a poem or story of your own using this word.

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• Select one or more cards and write about or describe a time in your life when this word was a feature.

• Can you write about or describe a person who ‘embodies’ the card you have selected?

• Choose a card and write a list of some of the ways you experience this in your life right now or have experienced in the past?

• Choose a card and write a list of related words.

• Arrange several cards in a sequence and use them for writing or telling a story.

• Use a series of cards to draft an ‘Action Plan’ for yourself, your business, your family or your team. Include your goals (your ‘picture of the future’), steps along the way, strengths and resources you can draw on, and a timeframe. You may want to draft this plan with others in a group or it may be a private plan just for you.

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Useful Questions to Ask

One of the ways of ‘changing our attitude’ is to choose the ‘right’ questions. Problem-saturated questions can explore what has gone wrong and what is not working. They can lead us into, or reinforce, our sense of doom and gloom. On the other hand, solution-focused, ‘picture of the future’ questions can lead us out of the gloom by inviting us to imagine a better future.

There is no end to the list of potentially useful questions you might ask in conjunction with the Views from the Verandah cards. Here are a few to consider while recognising that choosing the right question at the right time is something we all aspire

to. It is an art form to which each of us brings our unique skill set.

• What do you hope for?

• What change would you like to invite into your life?

• What is stopping you?

• How would creating this change affect others?

The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. Oprah Winfrey

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• What do you think might be just around the corner?

• What are the most important things in your life at present?

• What do you think will be important in the coming years?

• What do you imagine might lie over the horizon for you?

• If there is one part of your life you would want to realign, what would it be?

• What are the first steps you might take to move toward achieving your picture of the future?

• Can you put the cards in the priority order for the changes you want to make?

• What parts of your life are the sources of greatest satisfaction?

• What legacy would you want to leave in each area the cards name?

• If you went to bed tonight and overnight a miracle occurred what would be different? Which parts of your life would be changed?

• When have you been surprised by your courage?

• When have you refused to give up?

• What makes you smile?

• What would you most like to learn?

• What gives your life meaning?

• What else? What else? What else?

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Shadow Questions

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In addition to the positive pictures of the future questions listed in the previous section, at times it is appropriate to open up conversations about the pain or trauma that can enter our lives – or if you like, the ‘shadows’. This must be done with care and skill.

One can ask such shadow questions as:

• Which of the Views from the Verandah cards are sources of satisfaction and fulfillment, and which are sources of frustration and disaffection?

• Are they the same cards or different?

• If we used the ‘Tank Scale’ from The Scaling Kit (published by St Luke’s Innovative Resources) which cards fill up your tank with energy, encouragement or hope, and which ones deplete it? Which of the cards represent the cracks in your ‘Fulfillment Tank’—the ones that may drain you of hope?

• Which cards represent ‘distractions’ rather than ‘the important things’ in your life?

• Which of the Views from the Verandah cards compete with each other for your time and attention?

• Which ones win?

• Which cards clash and generate role conflict?

• Which of the cards represent a high priority for you but a lesser priority for others in your life? What effect does this have?

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All shadow questions can be followed by a ‘turnaround’ or question that invites us to notice strengths and exceptions:

• Given the challenges you are facing in certain areas of your life, how have you managed as well as you have?

• What strengths do you use to stay afloat?

• If you were to scale each area of challenge or struggle, what skills and strengths have you used to get above the bottom or to stop falling further?

• What might you do to go up one point on your scale?

• What has worked in the past?

• What is it like when this issue is not pushing you around quite as much?

• What has impressed you or inspired you about what you have seen others do as ways forward?

• How might you ‘borrow’ strengths from others such as your family, friends, colleagues or communities?

Being Mindful

Visual metaphors, such as those contained in Views from the Verandah, can be powerful. While the Views cards are lighthearted with a gentle Australian humour, they are still capable of having a significant emotional impact that is not always possible to predict.

We have played with iconic Australian landscapes knowing that for some people these may touch on trauma and sadness whether it be drought, floods, fire, loss of a farm, destruction of a crop, forced relocation and even death.

For others, perhaps those living in cities or from other cultures, the caricatured landscapes may have little meaning and may be distractions.

It is important not to make assumptions about what viewers of the cards will experience or what interpretations they will make. While everyone at Innovative Resources works hard to ensure that none of our materials inadvertently cause offence, we recognise that not all images and styles will resonate with everyone, and that some cards will generate strong emotions and reactions—seemingly out of the blue!

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future. John F. Kennedy

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There is always a risk in offering a visual metaphor to another person, just as there is a risk associated with any verbal metaphor

or question—or any word for that matter! And just because a resource has been inspired by strengths-based ideas (as all materials published by St Luke’s Innovative Resources are), doesn’t guarantee that a resource will be used in that spirit. It is up to each facilitator of conversations and activities using the cards to create a setting of care and respect.

Respectful practice suggests that the facilitator should always:

• Be familiar with the content of each of the cards

• be comfortable with the words and metaphors portrayed in the cards

• consider the literacy levels of the group or individual

• consider the cultural appropriateness of the cards

• make a considered choice about which cards to use—this may mean not necessarily using the whole set

• use their skills and judgment to decide the best time and setting to introduce the cards

• have a ‘Plan B’ in case the cards cause confusion or discomfort, or evoke strong emotions that cannot be appropriately attended to at that time

• be prepared to include or switch to the client’s own metaphors and words as these are articulated

• take care to ensure that people can take up the option ‘to pass’

• take care to ensure people’s privacy is respected

• consider setting some ground rules for group conversations so that people are safe and expectations are clear.

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House of St Luke’s AnglicareThe future belongs to those who prepare for it today.Anon

The ‘house’ that is St Luke’s Anglicare is large – it has to be to hold all 380 staff. In fact, the St Luke’s house consists of numerous offices scattered throughout north-central Victoria and southern New South Wales in Australia.

St Luke’s is a busy community service organisation that provides a host of programs for children, families, young people and those with mental health, financial or gambling issues.

St Luke’s works with many people who are struggling with huge problems – child protection concerns, domestic violence, substance abuse and disability.

Many are struggling to keep hope alive in their lives. Originally established in 1979 by the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo, Victoria, St Luke’s has a strengths-based approach to service delivery. That is, the belief that everyone has strengths and that these are the greatest assets each of us has to tackle the issues that confront us, no matter how large. This practice philosophy is summed up in the book The Strengths Approach written by Wayne McCashen and published by Innovative Resources.

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Fundamental to St Luke’s strengths approach is the desire to help people who are struggling with life’s issues to rediscover a brighter future. Views from the Verandah is an idea that lies front and centre to St Luke’s way of working. Everyone needs a vibrant and positive picture of the future.

St Luke’s has some literal verandahs but most are figurative. Time spent ‘verandah-sitting’—reflecting and planning—is an antidote to the myriad of everyday tasks. We are constantly working at how to get the balance right.

To learn more about the work of St Luke’s, please go to: www.stlukes.org.au

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Views from the Verandah at Innovative Resources

Innovative Resources is now over 20 years old and the view from the verandah has been an ever-changing and highly creative one.

In surveying our landscape now we can see over 50 ‘seriously optimistic’, conversation-building tools that have been published over those 20 years.

We know that our publications have touched many lives in many different countries and the stories shared by users of our materials have greatly influenced the landscape of subsequent publications.

Each staff member who has come and gone over those years has also made an invaluable contribution to the landscape.

What is on our horizon?

While the worlds of publishing and bookselling are changing rapidly there appears to be a constant demand for quality materials that can bring conversations alive in ways that words alone may not. There is no shortage of new ideas for card sets and other publications both in traditional and new media that we believe will fill some important gaps. We are aware of many voices that are still muted if not silenced because appropriate conversation-building opportunities and prompts are not at hand.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.Peter Drucker

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We look towards the future with the ‘seriously optimistic’ view that Innovative Resources will continue to meet some of these needs.

Sitting on the verandah at Innovative Resources are a number of people whose efforts have helped bring the new edition of Views to life:

Karen, Rocky, Amy, Jean, Donna and Helen—Warehouse Collating and Packing; Chris –Warehouse Coordinator and Production Manager; Sue, Silvana, Rhiannon and Rose —Customer Service; Cristina—Finance Manager;

Kim —Administration and Training Coordinator; Karen and Caitlyn—Consulting Editors; Mat —In-house Graphic Artist; Georgena—Managing Director; Russell—Creative Director.

Many thanks to the whole team!

Most of all, thank you to all those who purchase Innovative Resources’ materials and thereby contribute to subsequent publications and to the social work programs of St Luke’s Anglicare.

To learn more about Innovative Resources, please go to: www.innovativeresources.org

This question can be asked in many different ways. In any of its guises it is a key question for ‘building a picture

of the future’ and it is a vital and defining component of solution-focused and strengths-based practice.

Einstein once said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.’

Views from the Verandah is an original and creative way of building an imagination of the future in order to keep hope alive. This is important for everyone but it is especially crucial for those who may be struggling to find their dreams for the future.

The colourful, humourous and delightfully Australian illustrations on the cards work as prompts to remind us all of the important things in our lives—our skills, strengths and resources. And they remind us of ways to keep our dreams alive!

What do you hope for?

St Luke’s Innovative Resources62 Collins Street KANGAROO FLAT Victoria 3555 AustraliaPh: (03) 5446 0500 Fax: (03) 5447 2099Email: [email protected]: www.innovativeresources.org

© St Luke’s Innovative Resources 2013

Innovative Resources is a not-for-profit publisher and bookseller; all sales support the children, youth, family, and community services provided by St Luke’s Anglicare.

Documents

Views from the Verandah booklet