Why Solution-Focused Practice is at the Heart of Abianda
Founder and CEO
When I established Abianda, I chose solution-focused practice as one of the foundations of our model. It was not simply a collection of techniques. It offered a way of thinking about girls and young women, about knowledge and expertise, about power, and about the role of the practitioner.
At its heart it seems like a simple idea: the young woman has knowledge, skills and resources that are essential to creating change. Our role is not to arrive as the ‘expert’ on her life. It is to listen carefully, understand what she wants to be different and help her notice the strengths and possibilities that may already be present (de Jong and Berg, 2013).
The origins of solution-focused practice
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy was developed during the late 1970s and 1980s by social workers Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg, alongside colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee.
Their approach developed through close observation of conversations between practitioners and the people they were supporting. They paid attention to the questions that helped people describe change, recognise their own resources and identify practical ways forward (de Shazer, 1985; de Shazer et al., 2007).
Rather than beginning with a detailed analysis of everything that was wrong, they asked questions such as:
What are your best hopes from our work together?
What would tell you that things were beginning to improve?
When has the problem been less present?
How did you manage that?
What is already working that you would like to continue?
What would one small step forward look like?
This does not mean that painful experiences or risks are ignored. It means that the practitioner does not assume every cause of a problem must be identified before change can begin (Bannink, 2007).
The assumptions behind the approach
Different solution-focused writers have expressed the assumptions of the approach in slightly different ways, but they broadly include the following:
People are experts in their own lives (one of Abianda's founding principles).
People have innate skills, strengths and resources (and another!).
A person should define the change they hope for.
Change is happening all the time, including small changes that can go unnoticed.
There are usually occasions when a problem is less present or handled differently.
Cooperation is more useful than describing someone as resistant or unmotivated.
If something is working, we can help the person notice it and build upon it.
The practitioner should use the person’s language and remain curious about their meanings.
These principles can be found across solution-focused literature (de Shazer, 1984; Walter and Peller, 1992; de Jong and Berg, 2013).
De Shazer’s challenge to the idea of “resistance” was particularly influential. He argued that describing somebody as 'resistant' may tell us more about the practitioner’s expectations than it does about the person receiving support (de Shazer, 1984).
At Abianda we are consistently curious about this dynamic. Rather than asking why a young woman will not cooperate with our plan, we should consider whether we have developed the right plan with her.
Solution-focused practice is not about having a bank of clever questions. It is about the position we take in relation to another person, how we value their expertise, and our willingness to relinquish the usual power dynamics. Interestingly, before I even discovered solution-focused practice, I was articulating that I wanted Abianda to have a business model that was comfortable with “relinquishing power to those people it sought to support".
Where youth work and solution-focused practice came together
I encountered these ideas while completing my MA in Applied Anthropology, Community and Youth Work and qualifying as a JNC (Joint Negotiating Committee) recognised youth worker.
At the same time, I was exploring youth work theory, participatory practice and the role of youth workers as informal educators. Paulo Freire was a LEGEND to me, and Bernard Davies’ Youth Work: A Manifesto for Our Times was an important influence.
Davies described youth work as a practice that begins where young people are, is rooted in voluntary participation and seeks to shift the balance of power towards them (another Abianda founding principle!!). He argued that young people should be understood as people in their own right, rather than primarily through adult-imposed labels (Davies, 2015; 2021).
The parallels with solution-focused practice were striking. The approaches all ask us to reconsider the balance of power, and for practitioners to begin with the young person’s understanding of their life. All treat the relationship as something negotiated rather than imposed. All respect their wishes, capabilities and potential.
Participatory practice provided a third strand. Participation is not simply asking a young woman to comment on a plan professionals have already designed. It is about whether she can shape the questions being asked, the account of her life being formed and the decisions that follow.
From this, Abianda’s integrated model began to emerge: solution-focused and participatory practice, rooted in youth work principles.
Starting from her best hopes
Girls and young women are often introduced to services through descriptions of risk, behaviour and professional concern. Information about harm is essential, but it can become the only account available, and it can begin to stand in for the young woman herself.
Solution-focused practice creates a different starting point. What does she want? What are her best hopes from having us alongside her? How would she know it had been useful and worth her time? What would feel different in her everyday life? What would be the first small sign that things were improving?
Contemporary solution-focused practitioners have developed the “best hopes” question to ensure that the person, rather than the practitioner or referring agency, sets the direction of the work (Ratner, George and Iveson, 2012). This is the starting point for all of our work with young women, and our impact data is focused on whether young women feel they are moving towards their ‘best hopes’.
At Abianda, we also work from the assumption that a young woman will have good reasons for doing what she is doing, even when a behaviour is exposing her to harm. This is Abianda’s own practice articulation, informed by solution-focused, contextual and relational approaches.
A “good reason” does not mean that something is safe or should remain unchallenged. It asks us to become curious about what the behaviour or relationship may be providing, and the context of it. This might include belonging, protection, connection, status, escape or a sense of control.
Unless we understand that function, adults may try to remove a behaviour or relationship without recognising what needs to take its place. An important consideration for risk assessment work and planning?
Helping young women notice
I think one of the most useful aspects of solution-focused practice is the idea of helping people notice.
When a young woman is living with persistent harm or crisis, and pathologising narratives, the problem can dominate the account of her life. Moments of coping, judgement, resistance or protection may be missed or misinterpreted.
Solution-focused practitioners pay attention to occasions when the difficulty was absent, less intense or handled differently. They ask what happened, what the person did and what this reveals about her abilities and resources (de Shazer, 1985; Bannink, 2007).
A practitioner might ask:
How did you get yourself through that day?
How did you know it was time to leave?
What told you that person was safer?
What helped you make that decision?
What does that tell you about yourself?
These questions do not invent strengths or place a false positive interpretation on painful experiences, nor do they miss-locate the responsibility for safety onto the shoulders of the young woman. They help the young woman recognise skills and protective strategies they have been deploying, that may otherwise remain invisible, and that may be useful for her going forward.
I have always felt that the role of a solution-focused youth worker, line manager or leader, is to help other people notice and be curious about their own strengths, strategies and critical thinking.
Holding the whole young woman in view
Young women affected by exploitation and violence are frequently known to several services. The difficulty is that their lives are divided into separate professional concerns.
One service responds to offending. Another addresses school attendance. Another focuses on emotional distress. Another responds to her violence. A further service considers violence within a relationship. Each response may be legitimate, but the thread connecting them can be lost.
The more complex a young woman’s circumstances become, the greater the risk that the network around her becomes stuck. She may be repeatedly assessed, passed between services or described as failing to engage.
Solution-focused practice helps us pause and ask different questions. What does she understand to be happening? What does she want professionals to recognise? Where does trust already exist? What has helped? What needs to be different across the network, rather than only within the young woman?
This does not transfer responsibility for exploitation or abuse onto her. It can reveal protective factors and possibilities while keeping responsibility with those causing harm and the systems responsible for responding.
Solution-focused does not mean context-free
Solution-focused practice must not place responsibility on individual young women to adapt to conditions they did not create. Girls cannot solve poverty, racism, misogyny, unsafe neighbourhoods, school exclusion or fragmented services through ‘positivity’ or ‘personal resilience’.
This is why Abianda integrates solution-focused practice with contextual and ecological approaches. We work with a young woman’s hopes and capabilities while also examining the relationships, places and systems affecting her life.
Her best hopes may require changes from family members, professionals and institutions, not simply changes from her.
The approach also supports anti-discriminatory practice. Beginning with the young woman’s account can reduce the risk of practitioners imposing assumptions about her family, culture, community or identity. The “not-knowing” stance requires practitioners to ‘hold their interpretations lightly’ and respect the knowledge she has gained from living her own life (de Jong and Berg, 2013).
However, curious and thoughtful questions are not sufficient on their own. Organisations must also examine power, challenge discrimination and understand how inequality shapes harm and professional responses.
Why solution-focused practice remains central to Abianda
Solution-focused practice remains central to Abianda because it offers a skilled and disciplined way of staying curious when circumstances are complex and systems have become stuck.
It reminds us that a young woman is more than the risks identified around her or the behaviours that brought her to professional attention. It helps us notice competence alongside vulnerability, creativity alongside crisis, and possibility alongside risk.
Most importantly, it supports a relationship in which her account carries weight and change is developed with her, rather than prescribed for her.
At Abianda, we often say that participation is protection. Solution-focused practice helps us put that principle into our everyday conversations.
References
Bannink, F. P. (2007) ‘Solution-Focused Brief Therapy’, Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 37, pp. 87–94. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10879-006-9040-y.
Davies, B. (2015) ‘Youth Work: A Manifesto for Our Times Revisited’, Youth & Policy, 114, pp. 96–117. Available at: Youth & Policy.
Davies, B. (2021) ‘Youth Work: A Manifesto Revisited at the Time of Covid and Beyond’, Youth & Policy. Available at: Youth & Policy.
de Jong, P. and Berg, I. K. (2013) Interviewing for Solutions. 4th edn. Belmont, California: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.
de Shazer, S. (1984) ‘The Death of Resistance’, Family Process, 23(1), pp. 79–93.
de Shazer, S. (1985) Keys to Solution in Brief Therapy. New York: W. W. Norton.
de Shazer, S., Dolan, Y., Korman, H., Trepper, T., McCollum, E. and Berg, I. K. (2007) More Than Miracles: The State of the Art of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy. Binghamton, New York: Haworth Press.
