Michael Durrant — Director and principal consultant

Michael is the Director of Brief Solutions STRENGTHS IN SCHOOLS project and is the principal consultant and trainer for the project. He is also Director of the Brief Therapy Institute of Sydney — Australia's leading centre for practice, research and training in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (and its interaction with the broader traditions variously called "the strengths approach", Positive Psychology, a resilience perspective, and so on).

Michael is a Registered Psychologist and Approved Psychology Supervisor. He has had an Honorary Academic appointment in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney and was previously acting-Director (for an extended period) of the Masters of Psychology (Counselling and Family Therapy) program, and acting-Director of the on-campus Solution-Focused counselling clinic at the University of Western Sydney.

Michael is recognised internationally as a leader in applications of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (and broader strengths approaches) in school contexts. He has been engaged to provide training to school counsellors, educational psychologists and guidance officers by the state Education Departments in NSW and QLD, has been invited to conduct training for psychologists and other education professionals in New Zealand, Queensland and Western Australia. Michael is the external trainer/consultant to a special Solution-Focused Schools initiative in the Far North Queensland region of Education Queensland. More broadly, Michael has been an invited keynote speaker at Principals', Deputy Principals' or other education conferences in Australia, New Zealand, France and the UK.

Michael is the author of Creative strategies for school problems: Solutions for psychologists and teachers, published by W. W. Norton in New York, as well as the author of four other published books and numerous journal articles. As well as being founding Editor of the (international) Journal of Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, he is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Psychologists in Schools.

 

Frances Huber — Senior associate and consultant

Frances is a Registered Psychologist and Approved Psychology Supervisor — but also has previous REAL experience as a classroom teacher.

Frances was employed as a high school teacher (English and languages) in Queensland for a number of years — she taught at state high schools in city and regional centres and was employed in a private boys' secondary college for a number of years (where she coached rugby, and basketball ... and debating! ... as well).

As a psychologist and Solution-Focused practitioner, Frances has worked in adolescent mental health, adolescent and family counselling and currently works in adult community mental health.

Frances is currently employed by an area Health Service but has ongoing input into the Strengths in Schools project.

 

Ian Johnsen — Senior associate and consultant

Ian is a Registered Psychologist with "front-line" experience working with adolescents in schools and in extreme community contexts.

Ian worked for many years with the NSW Dept of Community Services ("DoCS") as a specialist adolescent worker — including doing "Solution-Focused" work with adolescent street-kids around Kings Cross in Sydney.

Ian worked for a number of years as School Counsellor at two large Catholic high schools in Sydney and pioneered the application of Solution-Focused techniques for classroom teachers. Ian now sees a variety of clients for counselling and consults to a variety of agencies, including supervising staff of a youth accommodation service and providing training/supervision to staff within the Commonwealth immigration service.

Ian is involved in Strengths and Solutions in Schools training for the Brief Therapy Institute of Sydney. The book, tentatively titled Strengths and Solutions in Schools, written by Ian and Michael Durrant, is scheduled to be published later in 2020 (or maybe early 2021).