Therapeutic Conversations

Barbara Baumgartner	Brian Williams

Barbara Baumgartner and Brian Williams are Counsellors with the RainCity Housing First ACT Team working on the Canadian Mental Health Commission’s At Home/Chez Soi research study.

Brian has been working alongside people facing problems like homelessness, substance misuse, and mental health challenges for over a decade.  His background is in cultural anthropology, and his practice is informed largely by narrative therapy and Buddhist psychology.  Currently training as a meditation instructor with Noah Levine (author of DharmaPunx), Brian recently initiated a mindfulness group for service providers in the downtown eastside.  He lives in East Van with his partner, son, and extended family, and enjoys meditating, skateboarding, singing, hiking, and being a dog whisperer.

After growing up on a farm in Ontario, Barbara has made attempts at being a grown-up in England, Switzerland, North Carolina, and Australia, landing in Vancouver in 2006.  After discovering a passion for narrative therapy while listening to women’s stories of survival, resistance, and resilience from experiences of sexual violence she completed a post-graduate diploma in narrative therapy from the Dulwich Centre.  Barbara’s spare time is mostly spent baking and cooking while listening to trashy hip-hop music or CBC radio.

Informed by narrative ideas, Brian and Barbara are using groups to connect formerly homeless persons with new stories of themselves as ‘insiders.’  They can be reached at bwilliams2@raincityhousing.org and bbaumgartner@raincityhousing.org