Alison’s Notebook

Today, I thought I’d talk about a tool that has been around for a while but is still a favourite – the five-column tool.

The five-column approach was pioneered by Di O’Neil and Wayne MCcashen at St Luke’s Anglicare back in 1990 and is one of the cornerstones of strengths-based practice. It began as a paperwork tool used to record, in summary point form, conversations and reflections between workers and those accessing services, but it’s evolved to become an amazingly effective tool for supervision, reflective practice and for creating organisational change.

I’ve been using the five-column approach a lot lately in our Strengths Approach to Practice workshops and recently had an amazing experience while delivering training to an Aboriginal Co-Operative.

Normally, I’d ask participants to break into small groups, try out the five-column tool, then report back to the group. But in this case, the group decided they wanted to do the exercise together as a collective.

There were 25 people in the room, but I thought, okay then, let’s give this a go.

The topic for conversation was ‘where are all the men?’ Their focus was how Aboriginal men be encouraged and supported to participate in programs.

The conversation flowed for more than 30 minutes and we filled the entire white board. There were so many questions asked, pictures of the future imagined, strengths and resources identified, and plans made for the way ahead.

The conversation steered towards things like, What have we done in the past that’s worked? and What might change if we do things differently?

There were tears too, with participants saying things like, ‘we’ve never seen it all up there in writing before’ and ‘we’ve been holding onto these things for such a long time’.

Participants felt a sense of power and relief that their observations and concerns—their voices—were there for all to see. There was a consensus that ‘higher up’ need to see this.

What I love about the five-column tool is that it’s a living document—one you can keep going back to. You can cross things out and add things to it. It keeps all those conversations alive and everyone accountable.

Real and positive change followed those training day conversations—many new, culturally significant ways of involving men in programs were implemented as a result.