Lou White Pawson

Curiosity across the intersection of our cultural lens

lou_white_pawson_slides_for.pptx 

I will present a practical narrative of SFBT practice and the value of curiosity across cultures, working with intersections of our multi cultural identities, exploring the self and our wider communities through curious practice. My hope would be that through story I link academic aspects of SFBT and personal practice that provides examples of the power towards change through curious SFBT practice. I hope to leave the audience with a greater appreciation of the power of curiosity and how SFBT holds us in a not knowing curious stance.  

I hope that participants will come away from my keynote presentation questioning what curiosity means to them, how this does or does not enter their work with clients currently and what consideration they would like to give the role of curiosity within their practice. Recognising examples, the language and power of curiosity within the context of SFBT.

Born in sunny Devon, I immigrated to New Zealand in 2002. I have two wonderful children who have taught me a lot about neurodiversity.  My work background is vast, starting as a Detective within the UK, specialising within Child Protection and forensic interviews with children.  In New Zealand I worked within alternative education utilising the outdoors as a means to navigate life skills and educate youth who were no longer supported within the mainstream system. I later spent 11 yrs working within the Department of Corrections, specialising in work with high-risk adult offenders.  Missing youth work I completed a Masters in Counselling and worked in schools as a guidance counsellor for 7 years. My research focused on how SFBT language develops hope with youth-  Positive Lexical Choice; a bridge to hope through SFBT.  I found myself gravitating towards work with diverse, marginalised youth such as refugees and gender diverse youth.  My private practice includes gender diversity, trauma recovery, training in supervision, motivational interviewing and SFBT. I also design online courses and lecture for Canterbury University within their Masters Counselling programme.

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