Welcome to the Narrative Practice Research Network
For narrative therapy and community work research
The Narrative Practice Research Network is a joint initiative of Dulwich Centre and The University of Melbourne’s Department of Social Work.
We support and promote research about narrative therapy and community work and the use of narratively informed research methods.
We create connections, conversation and collaboration among researchers and practitioners in diverse contexts.
The Narrative Practice Research Network aims to:
Facilitate networking
exchange and collaboration among researchers, and between researchers and practitioners, who share a commitment to narrative practice
Promote innovation
in narrative practice, and share research that will benefit groups and communities facing mental health difficulties as the result of significant hardships
Support development
of narratively informed research methodologies and promote research practices that are congruent with narrative practice ethics and ethos
Extend the evidence base
for narrative therapy and community work (including practice-based evidence)
Nurture the next generation
of postgraduate students and early-career researchers who are working with narrative practice
Provide mentoring
for practitioners and community organisations seeking to undertake research on or with narrative practice.
Latest news
Launch: special issue of The Qualitative Report on narrative practice and research
The Narrative Practice Research Network is excited to be launching our special issue of The Qualitative Report exploring the generative possibilities of applying narrative therapy and community work to the theory and practice of research.
Online event: In conversation with Professor Bagele Chilisa
Professor Bagele Chilisa is a globally renowned postcolonial scholar, researcher, author and educator who has written extensively about decolonizing research
methodologies. She will be speaking to narrative practitioner-researchers about her work and responding to questions from participants.
Calls for papers
The Qualitative Report 16th Annual Conference, online and in-person, March 2025 The Qualitative Report warmly invites submissions from narrative practitioners and researchers for its 16th
Calls for research participants
Current opportunities to contribute to research projects about narrative therapy and community work.
NPRN Practice-Research Fellowships: Support for small practice-based research projects
The Narrative Practice Research Network is pleased to announce its first Narrative Practice Research Fellowships.
Narrative therapy
Narrative therapy and community work centre people as the experts in their own lives. Practitioners seek to elicit the values, abilities, commitments and survival knowledges that people and communities have to get through hard times and reduce the influence of problems in their lives. People join together to co-research the operations of problems in their social contexts.
Narrative Practice Research Groups
The Narrative Practice Research Network welcomes and supports the creation of specialist groups to assist members to connect and collaborate. Groups can have a research focus, be a community of practice or reading group, or facilitate local networking.