Perspectives
Growing the Open Dialogue Network with schools, services and communities
The Open Dialogue Centre is a unique purpose-driven organisation established with the support of philanthropy to enable the widespread adoption of Open Dialogue.
Message from our CEO, Keith Bryant
2024 has been a year of momentum-building for ODC as we enter a new phase of energy and support. We have delivered our first conference, designed a suite of training offerings and developed our approach to evidencing and scaling Open Dialogue in a way that will be beneficial to communities around Australia.
We welcome your interest, encouragement and support as we take the next step in our journey. In 2025 we will be stepping up our training and events to support organisations with even better ways to learn and implement the core principles
of Open Dialogue. This will strengthen the role of individuals and families and those with lived experience, and ensure people have agency and voice as they build their social networks.
Sign up now for our online introduction
to Open Dialogue in February 2025
Apply now for our One-Year Foundation Course in Sydney
Our first four-day introductory online workshop will explore and expand on the principles of Open Dialogue. It will be structured as two sessions over two days each on February 4th and 5th, and the25th and 26th, separated by three weeks for reflection, reading and practice. These sessions will be hosted by Mark Hopfenbeck and Flick Grey.
We welcome people with an interest in Open Dialogue and those who work directly with people in need of support such as community healthcare workers, living and lived experience workers, clinicians in mental health services, GP’ teachers and others to apply. This four-day day introduction is also great preparation for anyone planning to do the One Year Foundation Course 2025.
The Open Dialogue One-Year Foundation Course in Sydney runs across four blocks of four days from May 2025 – February 2026. Facilitated by Mark Hopfenbeck and Lisa Dawson, participants will develop deep knowledge of the Open Dialogue approach, principles and origins and explore the underlying theory of dialogical practice.
The course involves supervised dialogical practice-based learning, relational self- work, theory studies, peer study groups, lived experience partnerships and involves various reading and coursework elements to reflect on your journey towards becoming a dialogical practitioner or worker.
Perspectives - Christine Morgan
Christine Morgan – our new Board member – shares her view on why we need new approaches in mental health and how ODC is collaborating to enable systemic change.
“There is now widespread acceptance that the mental health system and its services are not meeting people’s needs. There is an imperative – with social and economic drivers behind it – to doing things differently. We need better outcomes. Open Dialogue is a framework that can open up innovation opportunities not just within a service, but throughout our system. The approach is also very practical in that it enables family and friends to be present with the person and their clinical team. Importantly with Open Dialogue, the true meaning of person-centred is realised. It requires the system to work with the person – not on the person. The outcome is a more sustainable, individually-led recovery journey for the person.”
What are your thoughts about the Open Dialogue Centre’s strategy to make Open Dialogue more widely available to people in Australia?
“ODC is focusing on enabling and showcasing the Open Dialogue approach to mental health and wellbeing across three key settings where people live, learn and work – and therefore where they experience mental health challenges. In piloting the Open Dialogue approach in schools, clinical settings, and local communities we can all demonstrate how involving family and community makes a real difference to the mental health outcomes of people. Over and above that, ODC’s new strategy highlights how Open Dialogue can be incorporated into each of those settings – paving the way to identify the policies and system adjustments required to ensure we are embedding agency, voice and lived experience into
how mental health and suicide prevention services are delivered in Australia.”
Highlights from our year
ODC’s aspiration is to create a unique community-led and evidence-based approach to Open Dialogue in Australia that can be adapted and scaled for different contexts.
How can we create a transformative locally networked approach to mental health and wellbeing in the Goulburn Valley?
Shepparton has a strong network of youth-focused services who are keen to transform the experience of young people with mental health challenges in their community. They recognise they need to work together in new ways so that young people have agency and voice, with stronger involvement from family and social connections. They also want to improve access to coordinated and compassionate care.
ODC has engaged with local youth and mental health services to establish Goulburn Region Open Dialogue Connect (GRODC) and have collaborated to develop a place-based approach to mental health care and wellbeing, based on the principles and practice of Open Dialogue.
The group’s focus is on the establishment of a mobile team of trained Open Dialogue practitioners who can provide support to young people across services and the community. Bespoke training will be delivered to service providers and peer-support workers to create capacity in the community.
The Goulburn Region Open Dialogue Connect includes: Youth Foyer, Lighthouse, Salvo Care, Youth Insearch, Bridge Youth Services, Rumablara, Headspace,
CAMHS, and Greater Shepparton Secondary College– all working towards building a community of practice in Open Dialogue.
‘In regional areas like the Goulburn Valley, we have limited practitioners that work with young people and we are unable to meet the huge demand for mental health and wellbeing support in the community. It is essential for all service providers to work in a more coordinated manner to make the most of the available resources. The most productive way to do this is to have the young person’s voice at the centre informing their network about what they need. Open Dialogue does exactly this and if all the relevant players are at the table from the start, the young person does not have to repeat their story.’
Vibhay Raykar, Infant, child and youth psychiatrist, Clinical Director CAMHS
Delivery of our first National Conference - a huge success with great feedback
Our first National Conference in Sydney was in May, involving 100 people over two days of inspiring and thought provoking dialogue. We had an extraordinary line up of guest speakers and panellists from around Australia and the world and learnt about how people on the ground are getting on with working out how they can bring Open Dialogue into their community
‘This conference has confirmed/reaffirmed the importance of many perspectives/experiences that bring us together.’
‘Loved the broader view of settings where this can be applied. Looking forward to broadening my view even more!’
School symposium and building a community of practice with schools
The Open Dialogue Centre is working with partners to create the systemic conditions for the Open Dialogue approach in schools to strengthen agency and engagement in learning.
In collaboration with Korowal School, we held our first School Symposium in Katoomba NSW to better understand the schools five year journey implementing the Open Dialogue approach throughout the school and with teachers, parents and families to elevate student voice, family engagement and connection.
‘Prior to coming to Korowal, I was always quiet and kept to myself. At Korowal, I found my voice. Korowal gave me the confidence to do things I never would have previously done.’ Student describing their experience with Open Dialogue at Korowal School in NSW.
Building relationships in Townsville, QLD and the Goulburn Valley, Victoria
On the 20th June, Hand Heart Pocket hosted a launch event in Brisbane with ODC where our head of training Mark Hopfenbeck and Steven Lewin, CEO of Youth InSearch shared how social networks are enabling young people with lived experience to collaborate with mental health teams. On 17th October we hosted
a discovery day at Headspace in Townsville. We spent the day with 24 participants from organisations in the area such as Queensland Health, Mind Australia, Headspace, the Foyer Foundation, Selectability Qld, Stride Mental Health, Youth Insearch, and the Department of Education. A big thanks to Steven Brooke from Headspace for making the day possible.
Additionally, we have:
Facilitated Discovery Workshops throughout the year in Shepparton.
Overall, we had over 365 people participate in our training, workshops and introductions this year.
New Board Members
The Centre would also like to welcome and introduce our two new board members, Kiera Grant and Christine Morgan. Kiera has extensive board and senior management experience having spent 15 years working in investment banking and over ten years as a full time non-executive director. Christine was previously the CEO of the National Mental Health Commission and National Suicide Prevention Advisor and has over years of experience in senior roles including CEO of the Butterfly Foundation, as well as ongoing engagements with education, mental health and legal sectors.
Unpacking the value of a social network
Open Dialogue places relationships as foundational to prevention and recovery pathways through social network meetings.
This approach ensures that individuals experiencing mental health challenges have easy and immediate access to network meetings in their community inviting trusted family, social connections – and their school or local services.
These network meetings are facilitated by mental health and wellbeing professionals, people with lived experience and peer-support workers who are trained in the Open Dialogue approach.
Network meetings enable a collective sense of support for the person experiencing distress. Central to the meeting is the agency and voice of the individual.
The idea of ‘nothing about me without me’ is core to the whole approach.
Facilitators adopt a dialogical mind set which means responsive listening, building relationships, creating a story together, minimising the medicalisation of the person’s experiences and adopting the use of every-day language. Network meetings become an efficient resource where different perspectives emerge and new ways of thinking and communicating are facilitated.
We urgently need new strategies to address the root cause of loneliness
The Open Dialogue Centre recently made a submission to the New South Wales Parliamentary Inquiry into the prevalence, causes and impacts of loneliness in New South Wales.
By way of a definition, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare describes loneliness as a ‘subjective unpleasant or distressing feeling of a lack of connection to other people, along with a desire for more, or more satisfying, social relationships.’
Loneliness is prevalent in Australia, and in 2020, 54% of young people reported experiencing a lack of companionship. There are multiple and nuanced risk factors that can contribute to people experiencing loneliness.
While targeted, therapeutic support for individuals is essential, community- based, population-level strategies are needed to tackle widespread low psychological wellbeing, particularly in children and adolescents.
Open Dialogue is a transformative approach to mental health that is supported by the World Health Organisation, the Victorian Royal Commission into Mental Health and Australia’s National Suicide Prevention Plan.
Social network meetings meetings enable new skills, perspectives and solutions to address many of the factors that may be behind a person’s loneliness.
When implemented with fidelity and coupled with bespoke training and support, the Open Dialogue approach has the potential to transform any therapeutic or community setting and the experience of the individual and their family, through its focus on relationships and social connection.
The Open Dialogue approach can now be implemented at scale in schools and place-based settings in New South Wales as well as other states and territories in Australia
A huge thank you from our Board, our CEO and our team!
We would like to thank everybody who has contributed to the work of the Centre and our partners this year. We would like to wish all the best for a wonderful festive season and new year.
The Centre will be closed from the 23rd of December until the 2nd of January. We look forward to seeing you in the new year for the next issue of Perspectives!