Talk: Working towards a common preferred situation: let’s take a look at what happened on the go

Christiaan van Woerden

In 2011, I assisted to build a paediatric department at a hospital on a remote island in the West Indies. The influx of newly arriving people revived old colonial pain within long-term islanders. Although striving for improved child health care could show my genuine intentions, I wanted to become part of society: become accepted, interact, enjoy together. But I had no idea how to do this. A friend and visual artist Frouwkje Smit joined me on this journey and convinced me to ship my (real) piano across the ocean – as piano playing is my passion. The piano was leading us in a journey across the island where encounters were made and small steps to create a collective preferred situation became visible. Only two years after completing the journey I realised where the change had occurred. I am now observing these moments in a new community art project in a township in South Africa, which we will explore during the talk.

Christiaan van Woerden, M.D. Ph.D. is a Dutch pediatrician, trained in Solution-Focused Practice by Esther de Wolf, Yvonne Dolan and Anne Bodmer-Lutz. Christiaan observes and enjoys how children and their families use their wisdom and skills to promote health. He practices SF in clinical practice (Red Cross Children’s Hospital), medical education and consultation research (University of Cape Town) in South Africa and the Netherlands (Global Child Health, University of Amsterdam).

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