APLA Conference 2022

There is no charge for this event, but registration is required.


This presentation and workshop (including group conversation and writing/reflection prompts) will draw on existing resources in the field of narrative therapy related to ‘meaningful work’ (particularly Vikki Reynolds’ ‘Resisting Burnout with Justice Doing’ and Fan Lingli’s ‘Exploring Narrative Group Work for Responding to Burnout in Novice Teachers’). The presentation will introduce the idea of narrative therapy as a framework for understanding experience and intentionally engaging with the stories to help workers feel connected to their own preferred selves. Drawing on the idea that “who we are and what we do are influenced by the stories we tell about ourselves” (Denborough, 2014, pp. 3), this workshop will offer narrative therapy frameworks in the form of questions and prompts to invite participants to tell the story of themselves as library workers in ways that help them name and reconnect to the values that drew them to their work. Through this reconnection to values, participants will be invited to experience themselves and their work as meaningful, honouring and dignifying their actions and choices. Both parts of the session will focus on how staying connected to deeply held values can sustain work in hard times. We will also discuss how to cultivate and maintain networks of support to counter experiences of isolation.