SFBT Workshop Perth
Three Day Solution Focused Workshop
Perth Western Australia
Presented by Dr Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs of the Solution Focused Institute of South Africa
“Listening to trauma in a different way has made me see how incredible people are, how resilient people can be, and how brave people become.”
- Dr Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs (2018, p. 231)
Proudly hosted by Kerry Drummond, Clinical Counsellor & Co-Coordinator of WASFIG
3 Day Workshop in Perth Western Australia 15th - 17th of June 2026
Day 1 & 2
SFBT with Clients Managing Trauma
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Day 3
Solution Focused Practice in Schools
What is Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)
SFBT is a respectful, empowering and hopeful approach. SFBT invites you to consider what you hope for, the positive difference you would like to see in your life, then walks alongside you to identify your preferred future, your history of success and your resources that make you the kind of person who can live your desired life. Exploring how you have coped with challenging past experiences, your parallel reality of resilience, can identify your strength that you can continue to draw on to endure these times. The solution to a problem is more likely to be found through discussing the life you would like to be living in more detail, leading towards the change you seek. Spending time discussing a hoped for preferred future can inspire motivation and confidence to notice opportunities to bring this about in reality, or to realise that it is already happening.
Dr Adam Froerer (2023) from the Solution Focused Universe https://thesfu.com/ in the USA has described SFBT as:
“A therapeutic approach that was developed by Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg, and their colleagues in the 1980’s. SFBT is an evidence-based approach that is effective at helping clients from any background and with various presenting problems. SFBT is a radical approach to helping clients that asks clients to focus their attention on the future they would like to design and create rather than continuing to focus on other problem-related concerns. This language-based approach encourages therapists to view each client as resourceful and competent, while they co-construct (work with) their clients to move forward into the life they would like to live. SFBT professionals ask detail-oriented questions that get clients thinking in new and more adaptive ways. After engaging in change-oriented conversations many clients report feeling warmly understood and empowered to use their agency and autonomy to make necessary changes in their lives that are in line with their desired outcome from therapy. This respectful and collaborative approach doesn’t further traumatize clients or require them to wade through heartache and pain. Instead, SFBT helps clients expand their vision of who they are and what they are capable of accomplishing.”
About the Workshop
Day 1 & 2: Monday 15 June 2026 – Tuesday 16 June 2026
SFBT with Clients Managing Trauma
Becoming a Resilientologist, Rebriefing Resilience and Finding Hope within the Trauma Story
Facilitated by Dr. Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs
Educational Psychologist, International Trainer, Researcher & Author - Johannesburg, South Africa
Trauma narratives are not where hope lies. They tell the story of what happened - but not how people survived. In this inspiring and practical Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) workshop, Dr. Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs invites practitioners to take a different stance in conversations with clients managing trauma - one that guides them to find their way back into hope, dignity and agency.
Dr Jacqui will share how the Solution Focused approach offers a respectful, empowering, and energising way to work with trauma. Attendees will learn to use hope-catching language and attention-shifting techniques that help people reconnect with their courage, coping and strength within their trauma story. By focusing on what a person is already doing to get through, practitioners not only foster their client’s hope and recovery, but also protect their own wellbeing by building vicarious resilience to counterbalance experiences of vicarious trauma.
As Dr Jacqui reminds us, our work is to bear witness not only to suffering, but also to survival - because between trauma and survival lies resilience and hope. Our role in ‘doing hope’ is to hold both realities by validating their trauma story and help clients re-remember their parallel reality of resilience. This is where hope lives, and through our conversations, we help it grow.
This inspiring resilience-informed workshop includes 8 modules over two days that will transform you from being a ‘victimologist’ (focusing on what happened to your client) to be a ‘Resilientologist’ – a practitioner who invites clients to recognise and grow the best version of themselves who got through trauma, one hopeful conversation at a time.
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Dr Jacqui shares her own transformative journey of becoming a Solution Focused practitioner and how this is not only good for her clients but good for herself as well:
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"Realizing that people 'bounce back' (Bannink, 2014, p. 19), and are resilient and even grow in the wake of trauma opened a whole new world for me. Becoming part of a journey that rebriefs resilience and celebrates bravery rather than a dance with terror by debriefing what went wrong changed my relationship with my practice and allows me to love my job again. Once I started acknowledging and honoring that clients who have experienced trauma enter a session with hope - a hope to feel better and cope better - I started building on the already existing hope and allowed hope to grow. Once I started looking with a solution-focused lens and listening with a solution-focused ear to my client's story; amazing things happened to me and my clients. As a solution-focused brief therapist I am continuously amazed at my client's ability to cope and handle a traumatic experience. Instead of being exhausted after a session with a client who has experienced trauma, I now feel inspired by my clients. Where once my clients' stories made me fear going outside, I now feel I too can conquer whatever comes my way. No longer do I need to run away from my practice and go lecture at a university. I now look forward to a practice with 'a waiting room full of heros' (Macdonald, 2011, p.36). Listening to trauma in a different way has made me see how incredible people are, how resilient people can be, and how brave people become." (Froerer, von Cziffra-Bergs, Kim & Connie, 2018, p. 230-231)
See the full Workshop Outline below
Workshop Aims
Through practical demonstrations, case examples, and reflective discussion, attendees will learn how to apply SFBT with clients managing trauma by:
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Shifting the trauma narrative toward resourcefulness, courage, coping, and inner strength;
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Using ‘hope-catching language’ to highlight what clients are doing to manage;
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Rebriefing resilience rather than debrief trauma;
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Noticing micro-moments of resilience hidden within trauma stories;
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Asking selective, future-focused questions that help clients reclaim identity, safety and possibility;
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Working as a "Resilientologist" - a practitioner who studies strengths, not symptoms;
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Facilitating conversations that restore agency, dignity and forward movement.
Learning Outcomes
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Integrate the language of resilience and hope in trauma conversations;
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Ask resilience-building questions that amplify coping and control;
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Facilitate rebriefing sessions that restore pride and agency;
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Confidently adopt the mindset and practice of a Resilientologist;
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Understand the neuroscience of positive emotion for hope, healing and growth;
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Build your own vicarious resilience and professional sustainability.
Who should Attend
Clinical Psychologists, Psychologists, Counsellors, Social Workers, Chaplains and other mental health professionals are warmly invited to join this transformative workshop on becoming a Resilientologist.
This gathering is an invitation – to slow down, to listen differently, and to rediscover the quiet strength that people bring with them. Rather than staying only with stories of pain, we will learn together how to notice survival, courage and hope, and how doing so changes not only our clients, but ourselves. This workshop offers a rich blend of theory, practical skills and collaborative learning. It is suitable for practitioners new to Solution Focused Brief Therapy as well as those already familiar with the approach and eager to deepen their practice.
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Working in a Solution Focused way not only enhances our client's wellbeing, but through experiencing the courage and resourcefulness our clients bring into conversations, this approach fosters our own wellness as practitioners as well. These hopeful interactions contribute to our own vicarious resilience, keeping us grounded, energised and connected to the more resilient version of our client.
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You will leave this workshop with a renewed sense of optimism and clarity about how to show up in session in ways that make a meaningful difference for clients managing trauma. You will gain practical, adaptable conversational tools that help evoke your clients' hopes - tools that highlight how their preferred changes are possible, and in many cases already emerging. You will deepen your appreciation for the resilience people carry within them, and learn how to skilfully invite clients to use these strengths as resources as they reclaim their lives from trauma. Most importantly, you will strengthen your confidence in co-constructing positive change and in accompanying clients as they rediscover their own pathway back into hope.
Day 3: Wednesday 17 June 2026
Solution Focused Practice in Education and Schools
Building Strength, Hope, and Collaboration Across the School Community
Facilitated by:
Dr. Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs
Educational Psychologist, International Trainer, Researcher & Author - Johannesburg, South Africa
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Merritt Watson
Educational Psychologist, Founder and Principal of School of Merit and Retired Educator
Solution Focused Practice (SFP) in education is about cultivating hope, resilience and agency - for students and staff alike. It helps schools shift from problem-fixing to potential-building, creating communities where people see themselves and each other through a lens of strengths, progress, and possibility. SFP is a natural fit for education because it aligns beautifully with learning, growth and wellbeing principles and works to empower students, build resilience and emotional regulation, enhances teacher-student relationships, supports staff wellbeing to prevent burnout, and encourages a collaborative and hopeful school culture.
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Education is evolving - and educators are being called to teach, support, and inspire in new ways. In this full-day workshop Dr. Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs will be joined by her colleague Merritt Watson an Educational Psychologist and School Principal who founded the School of Merit, a pioneering Solution Focused School in Johannesburg, South Africa. Together they will introduce a refreshing, strength-based approach of Solution Focused Practice (SFP) that empowers educators and mental health practitioners with practical tools and inspiring examples to work collaboratively with students, parents, and colleagues in a hope-oriented way, demonstrating the transformative impact on classrooms, staff teams and school cultures. Becoming Solution Focused reinvigorates educators by shifting the focus from challenges to possibilities – enhancing professional wellbeing and reigniting passion for teaching.
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This highly engaging workshop comprises five impactful and informative modules designed to empower education professionals to become Solution Builders - doing things differently, working collaboratively, and creating environments where learning and growth are shared activities.
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SFP aligns strongly with educators’ efforts to create inclusive learning environments. It is particularly supportive within Montessori and other settings that embrace diverse learners. SFP is a respectful, empowering approach that centres dignity, strengths, and what works for each learner. It complements neurodiversity-affirming practice by shifting the focus from managing behaviour to building relationships that enable engagement, belonging, and learning readiness. By emphasising small observable progress, student-led goals, and practical relational strategies, SFP provides educators and school mental health professionals with tools that are immediately useful in everyday practice.
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Educators benefit from adopting SFP through relational tools that are effective within time pressures, strengthened classroom connections, and more responsive support grounded in students’ strengths. School Psychologists and Counsellors benefit from collaborative planning with students and families, improved engagement with support processes, and a clear, hopeful framework for consultation.
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Across school communities, solution focused conversations nurture wellbeing by orienting staff and students toward possibility and progress. For students, particularly neurodivergent learners who may have experienced misunderstanding or repeated correction, SFP offers a different experience. It communicates that they are seen, understood, and valued for what works for them. This strengthens engagement, promotes a sense of belonging, and supports readiness to learn.
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SFP also aligns naturally with Montessori philosophy. Both approaches uphold learner autonomy, intrinsic motivation, and respectful guidance. Solution Focused conversations enhance Montessori practice by providing structured, strength-based language that reinforces competence, celebrates progress, and supports resilient, self-directed learners.
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Merritt Watson shares her best hopes and goals in weaving the solution focused mindset into the school through ongoing training workshops with Dr Jacqui. The School of Merit supports 'differently abled' children who do not fit the traditional school box and was transformed into a Solution Focused school that accommodates all children and gives them hope:
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"We hoped that by introducing the Solution Focused approach focusing on the positive aspects and on the strengths of children and teachers, the talk and atmosphere would change to one of positivity, excitement, vibrancy and hope for all stakeholders. Instead of discussions being about the hard times, the 'naughty' child and the child's poor results, it would change to when the child did well in an activity and how a weak and seemingly 'naughty' child was actually a very enthusiastic child. When the 'problem' gets minimal to no airtime, we hoped the focus and atmosphere would become more positive. In essence, we wanted a school atmosphere and reality that mimicked all the teacher's best hopes and aspirations. We wanted an institution filled with joy and happiness where quality teaching took place. Our goal was to create a school where learners and teachers were not burdened by negativity and stress but motivated and excited by possibilities." (Birkett & Watson, 2021, p. 88)
See the full Workshop Outline below
Workshop Aims
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Discuss Solution Focused principles and mindset focused on solution building not problem solving;
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Be ‘strength searchers’ adopting solution focused language using a different set of questions;
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Set individual and class goals with students and use their strengths to reach their goals;
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Manage classrooms with solution focused conversations to promote engagement and resilience;
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Create solution focused discipline strategies to upskill rather than punish;
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Enhance collaboration between teachers, mental health professionals, parents and students to find a solution that all parties can contribute toward;
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Create hope and be more positive in working with children and parents, and not against them or for them.
Learning Outcomes
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Gain a shared framework for solution-focused collaboration and solution building;
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Learn language and scaling questions to identify progress and promote responsibility and engagement;
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Strengthen partnerships with parents and create teacher-child collaboration;
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Learn to be a strength-searcher to help students find their own goals to doing things differently;
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Discover practical and creative classroom, counselling, and meeting strategies;
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Do more of what works, nurture hope and prevent burnout by focusing on success and possibility.
Who should Attend
Teachers, School Counsellors, School Psychologists, Social Workers and Occupational Therapists, Chaplains, Youth Workers, and Support Staff.
Whether you are new to or familiar with Solution Focused Practice, discover how Solution Focused Practice can transform your school culture by focusing on what works, amplifying success, and co-creating meaningful, sustainable change. Through five practical and inspiring modules, you’ll learn to build resilience, reignite your passion for teaching and counselling students, and bring hope and possibility back into everyday conversations. Join us to experience how becoming Solution Focused enables educators do things differently in teaching, wellbeing and behaviour management with confidence, creativity, and care.
Workshop Registration Fees
Early Bird ends 31 March 2026 and General Fee applies from 1 April 2026 onwards.
10% discount applies for WASFIG members who have attended a WASFIG meeting or for ASFA members
1: Please complete the REGISTRATION FORM below to register for your preferred workshop
2: Email this to Kerry Drummond at invictuscounsellingservice@gmail.com
* Registration closes on 18 May 2026.
To enjoy a more memorable workshop, and continue enriching conversations and connection with like-minded colleagues over breakfast and dinner, join us to stay at Joondalup Resort! Accommodation is available with a special guest discount code provided upon registration. A small allocation of rooms will be held for our group, so we encourage early booking to avoid missing out!
Registration Fee Includes
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Workshop notes booklet to be provided at the workshop.
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Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea.
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Pre-learning material to warm up and prepare for the workshop.
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10% discount for your first SFBT Skills Practice and Supervision Group with Kerry Drummond (Clinical Counsellor) to consolidate and build on the SFBT skills you learnt with Dr Jacqui in working with your clients;
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Membership with the WA Solution Focused Brief Therapy Interest Group (WASFIG) – learn about the SFBT 3.0 Connie-Froerer Diamond approach, connect with SF practitioners, share SFBT resources, access support in working with clients, and see information for the free upcoming bi-monthly WASFIG Zoom meetings beginning in February: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3103428583276551
Event Speakers
Dr. Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs
Educational Psychologist, International Trainer, Researcher & Author - Johannesburg, South Africa
Dr Jacqui von Cziffra-Bergs is an Educational Psychologist from Johannesburg, South Africa, and an internationally respected Solution Focused practitioner, researcher, and educator. She is widely recognised for her engaging workshops and her innovative applications of SFBT in trauma, resilience, and wellbeing. Dr Jacqui’s work centres on using language as a tool of hope - guiding practitioners to notice strengths, uncover resourcefulness, and co-create new narratives of coping and thriving with their clients. She teaches SFBT and Solution Focused thinking to psychologists, counsellors, social workers, schools, and organisations, and is the founder of the Solution Focused Institute of South Africa, dedicated to world-class training in Solution Focused practice. Previously an Associate Professor at the University of Johannesburg, Dr Jacqui continues to consult at universities across South Africa and has lectured extensively on Solution Focused Therapy both locally and in the United States. In 2018, she co-authored SFBT with Clients Managing Trauma for Oxford University Press, and her most recent book co-edited with Anne-Marie Wulf, Women’s Perspectives on the Solution Focused Approach, was published by Routledge in 2024.
Email: drjacqui@solutionfocusedsa.com
Website: www.solutionfocusedsa.com
Merritt Watson
Educational Psychologist, Founder and Principal of School of Merit and Retired Educator
Merritt Watson is a retired Educator with over 41 years teaching experience, and over 20 years’ experience as an Educational Psychologist. She was the owner of School of Merit, (an Inclusive School in Johannesburg, South Africa) and has been Head of a School for the past 31 years. She has extensive experience in dealing with children who experience different barriers to learning and is passionate about children who are differently-abled.
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Merritt Watson has had the opportunity to lecture at numerous institutions both locally and internationally. Merritt has co-written a book on Solution Focused teaching strategies and contributed chapters to 2 different books on Solution Focused principles in schools, published both locally and internationally.
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SFBT: The Three Essentials One Day Workshop
From September 2023
Kerry Drummond along with her colleague Steve Runciman (Clinical Psychologist) are providing SFBT training workshops in Perth.
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The one day workshop presents the new SFBT 2.0 approach using the SFBT Diamond model created by Elliott Connie and Adam Froerer (2023). The three core essential concepts of SFBT 2.0 will be explored - the mindset, the road map and the importance of building fluency in SFBT language. SFBT skills practice in a supportive environment will be facilitated to build practitioner confidence and competence in SFBT to be able to use this approach immediately with clients. This workshop is presented in person in Balcatta, however will be available online via Zoom in future.
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To continue to build confidence and competence in SFBT, workshop attendees can follow up this training by joining a SFBT Skills Practice and Supervision Group. These are open groups held throughout the year for two hours. All practitioners, whether or not you have attended a workshop, who are interested to build on their SFBT practice, progress and learnings are welcome to attend. These specialised groups enable practitioners to continue sharpening their practice in a supportive SF environment starting in 2024. These groups are available in person and online via Zoom.
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If this is something you would like to join us for please contact Kerry to receive more information.
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We look forward to meeting practitioners who are interested in building their SFBT skills to empower our clients and develop Vicarious Resilience in ourselves as practitioners!
To learn more about how working from the SFBT approach can build Vicarious Resilience in ourselves as practitioners, to reduce the impact of Vicarious Trauma, please have a look at the summary from our April 2024 WA SFBT Interest Group where we explored this topic:
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