This little book reminds me of a great article, written back in 1974 by Edgar Auerswald, entitled "Thinking About Thinking About Health and Mental Health" and could as easily been called "Thinking About Thinking In Child Welfare and Child Protection". Auerswald's article, at the time, was a poignant plea for helping organizations to take a serious look at the belief systems underlying their day-to-day helping activities. These belief systems, according to Auerswald, ended up hurting more than helping people, precisely because specialization, fractionalization, piecemeal programming, hierarchical/ authoritarian structures and blame systems were so inimical to the healing of whole communities. Instead of inter-disciplinary head-banging, Auerswald saw an immediate need for new programs to begin flowing out of what he called an ecosystemic model.

Where Auerswald's article was an appeal to change our way of being as health care providers, Bellefeuille, Garrioch and Ricks book recounts a story of "doing the change" and sharing the outcomes of what a small Indian child welfare agency created in Northern Manitoba. It is a book that challenges us to re-vision/re-think our thinking in the field of child welfare (for that matter any service organization) and to seriously consider what should be/could be for our future's together within our communities, as child protection agencies. Bellefeuille's "learning model of child welfare governance" breaks all the rules of traditional governance in child welfare and congruent with the ecosystemic model described by Auerswald, states that, "First Nations people are taught that development comes from within, that experiences act as a mirror for personal reflection, and that all things are connected so we must "walk in balance" with a shared vision and a sense of unity."

Child welfare agencies across North America are beset with problems, not the least of which are escalating demands, critical shortages of resources and high public dissatisfaction. While most child welfare agencies maintain an exclusive focus on child protection, surprisingly, the incidences of abuse and neglect have shown no real signs of diminishing. Recognizing that their small native child welfare agency (Awasis) mirrored these same problems, the authors set out to do "child welfare" differently. Beginning with the premise that old models and paradigms have contributed to a massive failure of the child welfare system, management at Awasis embraced a totally new governance model which they called the "Awasis Learning Model of Governance". This model represented everything that traditional patriarchal systems of thought were not, including; decentralized services, learningful environments, inter-sectoral collaboration, integrated communities, strategic thinking, supporting leadership development, and viewing experience as academic and inextricably tied to theory and practice.

This little book consists of 7 easy to read chapters. You will learn about the authors underlying motivation to develop a better way in child welfare and the importance of commitment by management to a new "management attitude". Out of this new management attitude, they describe the importance of one's "mental models" and how their shift to a "learning model of governance" was fundamental to the transformation of their services. In chapter 4, the authors provide a description of an organization which I believe, most closely resembles what we would term an "ecology" - where there is no separation between policy, administration or the community ( "ecology" by-the-way, comes from the Greek word oikos, meaning house or home, a place where "one can be"). Chapter 5 reports on how changes at Awasis translated into the many diverse areas of practice within their community and tracks the many positive developments that have occurred. Chapter 6 issues a disclaimer that the Awasis model could be exactly right for your agency, but provides a number of "points of consideration" that will help you address the unique needs of your own community & service. Chapter 7 invites us to consider ourselves as part of a co-evolving contextual field within a patterned universe that one could easily call home (It's Bigger than We Are and There's No End To It) and provides some very excellent reflexive questions that enable the reader to begin positioning oneself "to become" different in child welfare.

While no mention has been made in this book of the Narrative metaphor, the authors appear, on their own, to have evolved from a Systems metaphor, to a place, which I believe would more correctly be identified with Narrative practice. Here are a few amazing similarities. Like Narrative:

The authors espouse a philosophy that objectifies problems and not people.

They privilege the community and individual's knowledge about themselves over expert knowledge.

They emphasize the importance of respect for one another in our day-to-day interactions.

They emphasise the importance of "strengths" identification as the most important component to community and people empowerment.

They position themselves uncompromisingly with respect to child welfare ideologies that story people's lives in constraining ways.

To me, the story of Awasis agency represents the successful implementation of Narrative practice at its best. It's a story that should be circulated, celebrated and implemented with other child welfare agencies everywhere. Certainly it will lead you to "think about your thinking." You can order it off the www at Awasis.