A vision of Living Cities in South Australia

INTERVIEW |Sonja Bar-Am graduated from the Governor’s Leadership Foundation (GLF) program in 2013. She works as Family & Relationship Counsellor at Uniting Communities, while also running a web shop in eco, sustainable and organic cotton clothes and home linen. Sonja is one of those people that never sits still and is always on the lookout for great ideas and new opportunities. She will fly to New York in October to meet with the CEO of Living Cities, an initiative she would like to pilot here in Adelaide and she might need your help… Read on to find out more about this inspiring woman and to see how you can support her in making a positive change in our community.

Sonja, could you tell us something about your work as a counsellor?

“Uniting Communities holds three core principles: Care, Compassion, and Commitment. As a counsellor and family therapist with the Adult and Family Counselling Team, I endeavour to make these principles active in all help and support to people who come to consult with me about their lives and relationships. We are federally funded to provide counselling services, and I have a very large client base of men, women and their children of all ages who choose to come to a Community Service agency for Counselling help. I cover the city office and I do outreach to Murray Bridge. It is a daily privilege to sit with clients who are inviting me into the most intimate and difficult parts of their lives and relationships to collaborate with them on finding hope and personal agency.

“Adjunct to the client work I also extend counselling theory and practice possibilities of helping people, through writing and introducing new innovative practices into Adelaide such as the Open Dialogue practice to helping families where a person has had an experience of psychosis and other mental illness presentations. I am currently extending thinking and practices of our team in working with a strong awareness of gender in relationships and working with addressing violence in our community. I am extending this thinking into promoting equitable and equity in gender relations organisation and business workplaces.

“While the counselling and thinking around this takes up much of my working time, the GLF reframed my vision into seeing multiple possibilities to extend into areas I am interested in.”

The State of the Nation

GLF 2014 participant David Coombe reflects on the first seminar of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation program – The State of the Nation. Throughout the year various GLF participants will contribute to a series of blog posts about their experiences and insights of the GLF program.

The State of the Nation…

Such a phrase I feel invokes many thoughts and ideas when circulated in our communities. This seminar of the Governor’s Leadership Foundation Program focused on an overview of the debates related to our economy, population, environment and social issues that are facing Australia and South Australia, both domestically and abroad. With such a diverse array of matters that are touched by these topics and how they have and may impact the state of our nation now and into the future I felt ‘although I have my own thoughts and ideas, I am only scratching at the surface’. I’m curious to learn more from my fellow GLFers and speakers, acknowledged as experts in their field.

“Although I have my own thoughts and ideas, I am only scratching at the surface.”

I was interested to hear speakers advocate passionately for their point of view. Throughout the event some guests sought to connect their view point with those of the others, cross pollinating ideas and demonstrating that they are all interlinked. I saw where this did not happen a view point was not socialised, which meant that only ideas that were openly discussed could be aired and considered.

Speakers panel during Seminar State of the Nation, GLF 2014. Photo credit: Michelle Holland FGLF13

Reflecting on the seminar I am left pondering ‘what do we want our nation to look like tomorrow?’ What needs to be done today in order for our society to get there? And what may we have to go without in order for our society, our children and grandchildren to be custodians of a society we are proud to leave to them? It was interesting to note the phrase “we are too Adelaide-centric” appear in the conversation. This is a phrase I have used and heard time and again, but are we acting on our recognition of this?