The Handbook of Counselling Children & Young People - Hardcover

This is a book which all practitioners, who work therapeutically with children and young people, will find indispensable. An unrivalled array of expertise from across the field provides a comprehensive overview of good practice and cutting edge developments in the field. Each contributor prizes the individuality of each child or young person, while also evincing valuable principles germane to the therapeutic setting as well as the wider professional context.

The book is framed by the recognition for the need for fuller knowledge and professional expertise specific to counselling and therapeutic work with children and young people, and represents an essential guide to addressing the Counselling Competencies set out by BACP for work in this field.  The layout of the book is very accessible and allows for the reader to focus on a specific theme, or draw on the  remarkable range provided across the book, to support their practice or studies. The four sections: Theory and Practice Approaches; The Counselling Process; Practice Issues and Practice Settings work well as stand alone sections, while also providing clear links across the book. Relevant and powerful case studies bring the principles to life.

At a time when the need for ‘joined up working’ between practitioners supporting vulnerable children and young people is at the forefront of good practice, The Handbook of Counselling Children and Young People puts itself ahead of the field in providing a unique overview for professionals and trainees. Amongst other things, it provides critiques of theoretical models for practice, valuable insights into working with individual mental health needs and ethics, organisational considerations for best practice and emerging developments such as online counselling. This book has it all, and is a ‘must have’ for all practitioners and trainees in the field.

The editors of this excellent new handbook bring together a comprehensive range of topics to provide a key reference point for therapists working with children and young people. The contributing authors blend relevant research findings with their specialist practitioner knowledge, to offer an up to date, informative and authoritative guide to this demanding and complex area of work. This handbook is an invaluable contribution to the field and will become a well-thumbed resource for students, practitioners and academics.

This is a much needed and long awaited resource for all those working therapeutically with children and young people. It is a timely collection of resources which complements training and practice in this area, reflecting as it does the new competences for working with C&YP as well as the Mind Ed curriculum. It covers a wide range of topics and reflects well the complexity of working with this client group. This will I am sure become the bible for all practitioners in this area.
 

The publication of this book is a timely and useful resource for practitioners working in this important and growing field. With an impressive list of authors who are contemporary subject specialists, the text covers a comprehensive range of topics that will interest many stakeholders. It will be a useful companion to the emerging range of current e-resources available.

The Handbook of Counselling Children and Young People is a comprehensive text. It is very well written and considered throughout. I would thoroughly endorse Mike Shooter’s forward comments. The joy of the book is that it presents a variety of approaches for supporting children and young people and the so important eclectic mix and varied tool kit that needs to be available. Quite rightly the scene is set with child development and the role of attachment, linking in with the process of understanding therapeutic interventions and their process and impact. It is an appropriate and timely blend of approaches that can assist all those working with children and young people who may not necessarily be trained in a specific approach but nevertheless can adopt and use these principles and encourage further exploration and study.  I like the way the book is set out with sections on theory and practice approaches, counselling practice and processes, practice issues and practice settings which are very up to date and relevant to the current climate. Within each section all individual chapters have a case study, summary, reflective questions and learning activities. This is a really useful learning experience for students and those interested in this area of study and those wanting to support children and young people. The cases and activities add some rich material and food for thought. I will be recommending it to my students as a set text for ‘Communication and Counselling Skills; Children, Young People and Families’ on the FDsc Child & Adolescent Mental Health course here at the University of Worcester.

This landmark handbook brings together the fundamentals of counselling children and young people theory, research, skills and practice. It addresses what every successful trainee or practitioner needs to know in a way that is comprehensive, accessible and jargon-free.
Divided into four parts, it covers:

• theory and practice approaches, including chapters on child development, person-centred, psychodynamic, CBT, Gestalt approaches, and more
• counselling process, including chapters on the therapeutic relationship, skills, groupwork, supervision
• practice issues, including chapters on law and policy, ethics, diversity, challenging behaviour
• practice settings, including chapters on health and social care settings, school and education, multi-agency and collaboration.

Each chapter includes a chapter introduction and summary, reflective questions and activities, helping trainees to cement their learning. With chapters contributed by leading experts and academics in the field, this book is essential reading for trainees and practitioners working with children and young people.