Working With Distressed Young People

This book is part of the Empowering Youth and Community Work Practice series written specifically to support students on youth and community work degrees.

Anyone working within the youth and community work field may find that they come into contact with young people who display difficult, disturbing and dangerous behaviour patters. It is important that workers understand the causes of such behaviour and find out how to change it.

This book shows how distress and disturbance is created in young people, causing their behaviour to become difficult and problematic, not only to adults but also themselves and wider society. Using the latest evidence based theories, the reader is shown how to detect and diagnose problems and work out strategies for helping young people in distress. Up-to-date ideas about child and adolescent development are linked to real examples and explained in a way that is readily understandable. The author also explains how to assess and handle situations in which serious psychological problems are becoming apparent and advice is given on how to differentiate between common problems in growing up and more distressing difficulties, which require special treatment interventions.