Conversation Starters for Direct Work with Children and Young People


Book Description

Some children face traumatic or difficult events in their lives, and it's essential that they are helped to understand such events and given permission to talk. To do this, helping adults need to be equipped and confident to start these conversations. Conversation Starters for Direct Work with Children and Young People provides guidance and support for any adult who needs to talk to children about difficult issues. The issues covered include domestic abuse and drug use, mental health issues, adoption and fostering, family illness and bereavement, as well as giving evidence in court. Co-authored by the bestselling author of Direct Work with Vulnerable Children and Direct Work with Family Groups, this book combines seasoned practice wisdom with practical examples and activity ideas to enable you to best help the children in your care.




Conversation Starters for Direct Work with Children and Young People


Book Description

This is a direct work book on how to start conversations on difficult subjects with children and young people. Covering challenging topics such as suicide, domestic violence, drug or alcohol misuse, as well as giving evidence in court, this book also includes examples and activity ideas to help support and guide the child.




Direct Work with Vulnerable Children


Book Description

The ability to build a trusting relationship is essential when working with vulnerable children. Through the use of numerous engaging games and activities developed over 20 years of working with abused and neglected children, this book shows how these lines of communication can be opened up through effective engagement with the child's world.




Conversations that Make a Difference for Children and Young People


Book Description

In this unique book, international trainer and consultant Lisa Cherry invites professionals from education, social work and healthcare to engage in conversations on a range of pertinent topics and issues affecting children and young people today. Divided into three main parts, which introduce attachment, adversity and trauma, each discussion places an emphasis on emotion and the understanding that we have as humans for compassion, empathy and connection. By encouraging collaboration between sectors and exploring a range of intersecting themes, the conversations take the reader on a winding journey to broaden their depth of thinking, reflect on their practice and to consider the central message: that we can bring about social change, one interaction at a time. This book is a call to action and an opportunity to look around and decide what kind of service we want to provide, what kind of community we want to live in and what sort of legacy we want to leave. At a time of ever-present social and political challenges, this book will stimulate conversations on current practice and professional development for the future and is a must-read for everyone working with children and young people.




Motivational Interviewing for Working with Children and Families


Book Description

Drawing on 20 years of practical experience, research and teaching in the field, this book is a comprehensive guide on the use of Motivational Interviewing (MI) in child protection and family social work. MI increases the likelihood of behavioural change, working with client resistance to encourage a constructive environment when initiating difficult conversations. This makes it particularly effective for child and family social care. Drawing on over 500 studies spanning 11 local authorities, this book uses recordings of real meetings between social workers and families to explain what MI is, how it can be used in child and family social work and how to improve MI skills. An invaluable resource for frontline child protection and family social workers, this book will enable to help you to better understand the needs of the people you support and be more effective in providing the right kind of support.




Creative Ideas for Assessing Vulnerable Children and Families


Book Description

For the busy frontline practitioner with little time to plan ahead, this hands-on guide presents imaginative and unique methods to engage families and caregivers throughout the process of assessing vulnerable children. Setting the context for each area of assessment, including strengths and resilience, risk and needs and the child's lived experience, the book then describes a series of activities or creative techniques to engage young people and their caregivers within this area. It outlines the materials required, aims of the exercise and method. It includes 'handy hints' based upon practical experience, making it a quick go-to guide for every day practice. It encourages practitioners to focus on building safety into relationships and to adapt their approach to take into account the impact of trauma and abuse on an individual's capacity to engage and to communicate verbally.




Direct Work with Family Groups


Book Description

Direct Work with Family Groups is full of great ideas to aid engagement, assessment and enable positive change through direct work with family groups. Working with families can be a challenging experience. This book looks at the personal skills needed to engage families, both at home and in the community. It provides guidance on how to assess and manage the needs of individual family members, whilst also being mindful of potential risk factors. With easy to use activities and resources, this book will inspire you to think about creative new ways to plan and carry out your work. Based on tried and tested techniques, this is a must-have for social workers and social work students, as well as child protection workers, therapists, counsellors and child and family centre workers. It is the perfect complement to Direct Work with Vulnerable Children, also by the same authors.




Direct Work


Book Description

A diverse range of practitioners, researchers and educators present a variety of perspectives on what counts as direct work. Is it the undertaking of certain tasks with a child, or building a relationship that matters most? Is it more about what is done with a child or about how it is done? Is it a set of planned activities or spontaneous approaches? And what counts as effective communication, given the diversity of both children and practice roles and contexts?




BEING PARTICIPATORY


Book Description

The second edition of this book provides a clear framework for conducting participatory research with children and young people supported by practical examples from international research studies. Our aim is to encourage more participatory research with children and young people on all matters that affect their lives. This book illustrates innovative ways of being participatory and how such methods can promote the inclusion of children and young people with diverse experiences and backgrounds. It sheds new light on involvement strategies that recognise agency and that play to children and young people's strengths. The international experts in this book share knowledge built from their wealth of experience in undertaking participatory research with children and young people using creative techniques that can enable and promote ways of expressing their views and experiences. The book provides guidance on appropriate techniques that can reduce the power differential between adult researchers and children and young people as participants. These techniques help to optimise their abilities to participate in research. There is increasing interest in involving children and young people as co-researchers but little guidance on how this can be done. This book fills a gap in the current literature by addressing all these issues outlined above and by providing worked examples from leading researchers and academics. Building on the success of the first edition and, with an additional three chapters, this second edition is sure to have wide appeal to researchers across a range of different disciplines. This book is targeted at researchers, academics, and practitioners who need guidance on what tools are available, how the tools can be used, advantages and challenges, and how best to involve children and young people in all stages of a research project.




Understanding and Supporting Refugee Children and Young People


Book Description

This book is the go-to resource for those parents and professionals seeking to support children through the trauma of war and conflict. Not only does it provide the evidence base for effectively integrating refugee children into their new schools, but it also introduces the reader to a range of key tools and strategies to both understand and manage anxiety and trauma -related behaviours. Practical and user-friendly, it demystifies the process of talking about difficult topics, providing helpful advice on how to do this in a trauma informed way, making use of effective tools from therapeutic approaches to help our children and ourselves remain regulated and able to engage in post-traumatic growth.