Collaborative curriculum development in public relations: Applying Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT)

This paper uses Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) to interpret the experience of an academic and an academic development advisor working together on the high-pressure development of new public relations curriculum. SFBT is a counselling approach focused on helping people make improvements in relation to given problems. In an academic development setting, it provides a framework for considering the way collaborative relationships can operate in the process of building curricula and enhanced teaching practices. In the case discussed here, a teaching academic and an academic development advisor found that SFBT provided a useful model for reflection on an extended collaboration. The paper proposes SFBT as a potentially valuable tool for academics and their advisors in other curriculum projects.