"Accountability is not punishment. It is the beginning of repair."
Practitioner Workshop
Working with Violence and Abuse
An intensive training in invitational narrative approaches to accountability work with people who have used violence and abuse in intimate and family contexts.
Workshop Details
Duration
Intensive training program
Date
To be advised
We sincerely apologise — due to a fully committed 2026 schedule with various service providers, we currently have no workshops planned for the remainder of the year. We would love to hear from you if you'd like to be notified when future dates become available, or if your organisation is interested in a custom training program tailored to your team's needs.
Our Commitment
Reflective, Evidence-Informed Practice
We hold a deep commitment to rigorous, critical, and reflective practice. Clients and those who refer to us can be assured that our practitioners are serious, accountable, and professionally grounded — not only in therapeutic skill but in ongoing engagement with social science research.
In complex legal and family matters, our work draws on both qualitative and quantitative research evidence. This includes cases that are subject to cross-examination, where our observations and reports must be defensible, precise, and ethically sound. We do not approach this work through the lens of competing therapeutic modalities, which we find an unhelpful and reductive frame.
Instead, we engage with the broader body of social science research that illuminates the phenomena at the heart of our work: how families form and fracture, how violence and coercive control operate, how cohesion and disunity unfold across relationships, generations, and societies. We investigate and mark how the carefully chosen ethical values of respect, safety, fairness, accountability, and responsibility are lived and understood across diverse communities.
Overview
A Narrative & Invitational Approach
Working with people who use violence and abuse requires more than confrontational techniques or behavioural checklists. It requires an ethical stance — one that holds accountability and humanity together without collapsing into either minimisation or condemnation.
This workshop draws on the invitational narrative practices developed by Alan Jenkins and refined through decades of practice-based evidence in Australia and internationally. It offers practitioners a framework for engaging with people who have used violence in ways that are both rigorous and genuinely helpful.
What You Will Explore
Core Workshop Content
The workshop explores the following areas:
• Understanding coercive control and its effects on partners, children, and families. • Invitational approaches to engagement — moving beyond confrontation toward genuine ethical reflection. • Narrative frameworks for exploring identity, responsibility, and the possibility of change. • Working with ambivalence, minimisation, and resistance without abandoning accountability. • The intersection of gender, power, and cultural context in violence accountability work. • Safety planning and collaboration with legal and statutory frameworks. • Writing court reports and letters that reflect therapeutic conversations accurately and ethically.
Who Should Attend
Designed For Practitioners
This workshop is designed for counsellors, social workers, psychologists, family therapists, and other practitioners who work — or expect to work — with people who have used violence or abuse in intimate or family contexts.
It is also relevant for practitioners working within the Family Law system, including those who write reports for court or who work alongside legal professionals in family separation matters.
No prior knowledge of invitational narrative practice is required, though familiarity with narrative therapy concepts will be an advantage.
Practice & Ethics
Practice-Based Evidence
Invitational narrative practice has been researched by ANROWS (Australia's National Research Office for Women's Safety). Their report — Engaging men who use violence: Invitational Narrative Approaches — is available for download and provides an evidence base for the approaches explored in this workshop.
Our practitioners have worked in specialised family violence counselling teams for many years, holding each other to account in rigorous reflective practice. The ethics of this work — who is centred, whose safety is foregrounded, how accountability is understood — are woven through every aspect of the training.
Interested in this workshop?
Contact us to learn more about upcoming dates and how to register.
Get in Touch