Nurturing the wellbeing of students in difficulty: The legacy of Paul Cooper

This book is an opportunity to pay tribute to Professor Paul Cooper, whose long career in the field of young people with emotional and behavioral difficulties has made it possible to greatly influence the understanding of the difficulties of these children and the interventions that are implemented to them.

I have never seen, in the same book, such a diverse collection of topics, but which nevertheless offers a very coherent and relevant whole.

(Caroline Couture, Tenured Professor,

Department of Psychoeducation and Social Work,

Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières)

The originality of this book lies in bringing together a set of mature reflections by international authors on the understanding of the nature of SEBD and the challenges of equitable inclusive education in relation to students with SEBD.

(Paul Bartolo, Department of Psychology,

Faculty for Social Wellbeing, University of Malta)

Paul Cooper dedicated his academic life researching and writing to advance theory and practice to nurture and enhance the wellbeing of marginalised and disadvantaged children, at a time when such children were not only voiceless and disenfranchised but frequently at the receiving end of punitive and exclusionary practices. In this book various colleagues share their work and insights into how Paul Cooper’s pioneering work was instrumental in advancing the field they were working on and inspired them to further extend and develop the area themselves through their research and publications. Social, emotional and behaviour difficulties, the perspectives of students, nurture groups, the biopsychosocial perspective to special educational needs and disability, the wellbeing of students, especially those most marginalised, these have become keywords endemically attached to Paul Cooper.

Carmel Cefai PhD, FBPS, is Director of the Centre for Resilience and Socio-Emotional Health and Professor of Psychology, at the University of Malta. He has published extensively on the mental health, wellbeing and resilience of children and young people, with numerous books, research reports and journal papers.