This issue of the Journal of Solution Focused Practices (JSFP) marks several firsts. It’s the first with our new editorial team and the first on Scholastica, our new online platform. As well as peer-reviewed articles and book reviews, we have two reviews of solution focused (SF) publications and research as well as an interview, expanding the range of content available. We have a new and expanding editorial advisory board, a new journal manager in Alex Ashida and a Patron, Emeritus Professor Gale Miller.
I have been a member of the editorial board since the inception of JSFP since it started in 2014. Indeed, I was in the room in Malmö when Michael Durrant first decided that the field needed an academic journal to cover the full range of SF applications including therapy and counselling. I took on the role of book review editor in 2020 and have now picked up the editor’s baton, so I am not exactly a new participant in this arena. I would like to pay tribute to my predecessors Michael Durrant and Sara Jordan for producing six volumes of high-quality material, and to the Australasian Solution Focused Association (ASFA) for stewarding the journal so far.
Our new online home at http://journalsfp.org contains all the previous issues from 2014. The Scholastica platform allows us to publish articles as soon as they are finalised and consolidate them into numbered issues later; I hope to resume the pattern of two issues per year from 2024. We are now members of Crossref, the global organisation supporting scholars to find, cite, share and connect with new material. All our articles now have DOI (digital object identifier) links, an international standard which help our work to be indexed, located and used. This will help enhance the reputation of the journal, our contributors and our field in the years to come.
JSFP continues to be free to access both for readers and for authors. This issue has been paid for by ASFA from money they were holding on behalf of the journal – grateful thanks! The journal is supported by international SF associations and groups around the world including the European Brief Therapy Association (EBTA), the Solution Focused Brief Therapy Association (SFBTA, USA), the UK Association for Solution Focused Practice (UKASFP), SF in Organisations (SFiO), ASFA, the Austrian Solution Circle, the Swiss Network of SF Practitioners (NLA) and Fondazione Franceschi Onlus (Italy), who have all pledged financial support. We would welcome support from any SF organisation around the world. This model of international co-operation was established by David Hains (thank you David) and will stand us in good stead for the future.
Why do we need an academic journal in a field where ‘every case is different’? While it’s true that the specifics of each client and context are vitally important on the ground, we have an approach that is both distinctively focused and elegantly deployed. Learning, exploring, sharing and reinventing our work is vital to developing the approach. It also offers a way for academics and scholars from other fields to connect with our work and see that we take it seriously. The many protestations of no-theory and appeals to pragmatism and not-knowing may have given an impression of a community uninterested in listening to each other, never mind anyone else. Despite his exhortations to ‘not think but observe’, SFBT co-founder Steve de Shazer published 76 academic papers across nearly 30 years; he was clearly thinking (and writing) as well as working, and I suspect he would welcome continuing thoughtful contributions to the literature.
JSFP looks to the future and welcomes articles, reviews, opinion pieces, reflective essays and case studies from around the world. We advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, and provide material in languages other than English; our translated abstract coverage now includes material in Armenian, Chinese (both traditional and simplified), French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Spanish and Swedish (so far!). We are also starting to publish some full paper translations and for the first time are publishing work in two languages (an article in English/Japanese and several book reviews in English/German) simultaneously. Huge thanks go to our volunteer translators. If you would like to translate abstracts and even full papers into your language, please get in touch.
For updates please connect with our social media channels on Linkedin and Facebook. There will also be updates on the various email listservers and through our sponsor organisations. See you in 2024.