Social Justice Team III is heading to Galveston to the annual conference of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. They will be presenting a poster on Friday entitled, "Therapy to Advocacy: Principles to Practice, A Conceptual Model." On Saturday afternoon they will present the materials in a research forum that brings together MFT programs and students in Texas to present what is happening in their programs.Here is an abstract of what they'll present:
"Marriage and family therapy and other social science disciplines have developed emphases in social justice over the past several decades (Toporek etal., 2006; McDowell & Shelton, 2002). If MFTs are true to the mantra of “theory drives practice,” then such will be the case for the transition from “therapy to advocacy, from principles to practice” for those of us who think and practice from various systemic orientations. Specifically, this poster attempts to develop a modest conceptual model which embraces structural and narrative theoretical orientations in an effort to express the complexity of structure (Minuchin etal., 2006), i.e., institutions of power and privilege upon the lived experiences, i.e., stories of people (Epston & White, 1992). In particular, this poster will integrate curriculum, co-curricular activities, and institutions of various sorts, via one people group and their struggles and resiliencies, African American farmers and families (Gilbert & Eli, 2000)."
Their names: Kimberly Cherry, Rebecca Culver, Michelle Finley, Sarah Hugman, Heather MacLeod, Scott McBryde, and Brian Wingfield. I'm proud of these students and the paths that they are walking in an attempt to make the world a better place, one therapy session at a time and one advocacy effort at a time. Maybe we can post some pictures of them here after the conference.