1Reflecting Teams: Their Promise for Imaginative Education1

The Reflecting Team process is a relatively new therapeutic method embedded within post-modern approaches of narrative story-telling and constructionist theory. The process can be understood as an opportunity for a community of caregivers to join with “client systems ” as well as “client/therapist systems ” to discover new, life-giving meanings about a child. Anecodotal information from practicioners and families suggests that the Reflecting Team is a powerful method of therapeutic intervention. Viewed from an educational perspective, Reflecting Teams provide opportunities for a group of teachers, parents, and other care-providers to find new and imaginative meanings for children’s problems. They are also flexible in approach and hold great promise for helping careteams and families discover new options for behaviour management. Mistakenly, the very real concerns about “problems” often assume a priority position over children’s strengths and imaginations that ultimately form the basis for resiliency. Acting counter to this reactive approach, Reflecting Teams focus deliberately on imagination and strengths and actively search for multiple perspectives on troubling situations. The Child & Youth Mental Health Program in the Upper Fraser Valley of British Columbia has worked with the method for over 10 years. Public calls for greater accountability of government service