From Theory to Practice: Adapting the Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) Model to a Targeted Academic Support Strategy

Abstract

Models and strategies used in counselling are often highly adaptable to non-counselling use. In attempting to develop a strategy to support students who had been ‘terminated’ on academic grounds, staff working in the Academic Enabling and Support Centre (AESC) on the Fremantle campus of The University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA), adapted the Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) model. SFBT is well-aligned to specific academic support strategies, such as the Success Plan, the intervention developed to support terminated students on re-entry. Success Plans use SFBT’s solution-focussed orientation, and the organisational structure within SFBT, which has proved effective, with positive outcomes from the implementation of the Success Plan strategy. Further, the SFBT model has been recognised, over time, by various staff working within the AESC, as providing a strong theoretical and philosophical construct for various remits of the Centre’s work, including enabling programs, academic support and disability support.