Supporting Troubled Young People provides a vital and much-needed resource for anyone involved with children and young people who are suffering from or at risk of developing, mental health problems.

Problems such as self-harm, eating disorders, and anxiety and depression are increasing, while young men, in particular, are at increasing risk of suicide. This is against a backdrop of NHS CAMH services unable to cope with demand and resources in the voluntary sector being stretched beyond their capacity. This means parents, teachers, social workers and nurses are often the first and only help available. This book gives them a jargon-free, accessible guide to help them assess situations, provide skills and guidance to support children and young people, and know how and where to get more help for them.

Full of practical tips, advice, exercises and case studies. Articulates gender, multi-cultural, spirituality and sexuality issues. Tackles contemporary issues such as cyber bullying, eating disorders and self-harm. Uses research and established theory in an engaging way enabling the reader to translate ideas into modern multi-cultural practice.

Supporting Troubled Young People provides any worker involved in supporting, helping and caring for young people with a practical resource to use in their work as teachers, social workers, nurses, youth workers, doctors, foster carers, residential staff, psychologists and psychiatrists. Parents and young people will also find much of value here.

This book makes a rich contribution to the understanding and treatment of children’s mental health at a time when this is desperately needed. It is well-informed, full of case illustrations to guide the reader, and is written by a compassionate therapist and researcher with a solid grasp of the complex social environment in which children live today.

Dr Chris Nicholson - Head of the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex