ABSTRACT

This chapter examines ways in which workers have used optimistic approaches to address challenges in their work with other agencies and identifies some of the strategies that are shared by different approaches to optimistic practice in interagency work. Authors organised a workshop for the agencies they worked with, so that they could explain the principles and how they were putting them into practice. Yet many family workers, including those whose experiences have found ways to make room for optimism in their practice. If workers believe that change is possible and that it starts with people's strengths and capacities, the way they work will have a similar flavour, whether it is with individual families, communities or other agencies.