Narrative practice with youth: a heuristic case study on a youth-centre drama workshop

Abstract

This paper presents a case study on a narrative therapy (NT) informed drama workshop in a youth-work setting in Hong Kong. Externalising the problem was a guiding principle informing the social workers' practice and was adopted as an analytical framework of the research. The findings showed that the scaffolding sequence embedded in the theatre game was in line with the intended process of NT. Moreover, the participants' experiences in the game have shed light on our understanding of the ways in which externalising could occur and function. The adoption of theatre games under an NT framework opens up possibilities for future research that may contribute to the development of NT theory and practice.

Keywords:

• youth work
• social work
• narrative therapy
• drama

Acknowledgements

The preparation for this paper was partly supported by Steve Chung — the social worker of the Chinese YMCA Chai Wan Centre who co-developed the workshop, followed up the transcriptions and participated in the coding.