This volume broadens the knowledge and skill base of practitioners doing group social work with adolescents and fosters a creative, innovative, and self-reflective approach. A rich introduction to the field, enlivened by numerous illustrations from actual group sessions, the book provides principles and guidelines for work in a wide range of settings.

This book explores the development of youth policy and youth work in Ireland from the mid-19th century to the present day. Based on original research, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS), it looks at the social construction of youth, the emergence of the early youth movements and the nature and scope of contemporary youth work. Key issues include: the shift from mainstream to targeted provision, the professionalisation of the sector and the increased partnership between the state and voluntary sector. A second major theme is the treatment of young people in industrial and reformatory schools, with particular reference to the findings of the Ryan Report on child abuse (2009). This is the only book which combines an exploration of the history and current scope of youth work and youth policy, and which is based on comprehensive original research. It will be essential reading for lecturers and students in youth work, social sciences, social history and related fields.

This book deals with ways of helping families cope with the difficulty of rais­ ing adolescents. Professional social workers - along with other human ser­ vice professionals - encounter these families in numerous settings: child welfare and family service agencies, hospitals, schools, community mental health clinics, residential treatment centers, juvenile halls and detention centers, recreational and vocational training organizations, and many others. While families from all walks of life may be found in these settings, families who have suffered the additional stresses of poverty, discrimination, and the consequences of physical and mental illness are commonly overrepresented. Even under the best of circumstances, the adolescent years often put the strongest family structures to the test - sometimes to the breaking point. A recent national study of over one thousand average, middle-income, two­ parent families reviewed the strengths, stresses, and satisfactions of the family life cycle (Olson and McCubbin 1983). As many would expect, families with adolescents were found to experience more stress and lower levels of family adaptability, cohesion, and marital and family satisfaction than any other developmental stage. The families with adolescents who fared best were those with such marital resources as good communication and conflict resolution skills, satisfying sexual relations, and good parent-adolescent communication.

The thirty-five chapters in this book are edited versions of papers presented at the Advanced Research Workshop, State Intervention on Behalf of Children and Youth, which took place in Maratea, Italy, February 20-24, 1989. The Workshop was attended by leading child welfare researchers from most of the Western countries. Represented were scholars and practitioners from disciplines as diverse as law, social work, neurology, economics, political science, education, psychology, and psychiatry. This variety of disciplines considerably enriched the discussions at the Workshop and is reflected in a set of interesting and, we believe, potentially useful research papers. This book is divided into four sections, each dealing with dominant themes of state intervention. The first section deals with research on organizing for state intervention and related ways of providing accountability. The second section deals with research on young persons in conflict with the law, the third with research on child abuse and the final section with research on children in care. Many of the matters addressed in these papers relate to more than one of the topical theme headings and, therefore, might well have been located in different sections of the volume. Each section is introduced by an introductory statement that provides an overview of the papers and issues addressed, and suggests an agenda of research work to be undertaken. These introductions are based largely on workshop discussions and do not necessarily represent the views of their identified authors.

This indispensable text analyzes the key skills in youth work, ranging from the initial steps through to supervision, which can be applied across a variety of settings and roles. Throughout the book, practical examples grounded in participatory and anti-oppressive practice address the core values and the purpose of youth work. Suggestions for further reading, definitions, and theories are also provided.

When President Franklin Roosevelt formed the National Youth Administration (NYA) in June 1935, he declared that it would address "the most pressing and immediate needs" of American young people. In this book, Richard A. Reiman explores the various and sometimes conflicting ways in which the NYA planners and administrators defined those needs and attempted to answer them. As Reiman notes, the NYA was set up to assist the millions of youth who, during the Depression years, were out of school, out of work, and ineligible for the New Deal's own Civilian Conservation Corps. Contrary to popular belief, he argues, New Dealers did not envision the NYA primarily as a "junior WPA", a trigger for civil rights reform, or a springboard for the careers of liberal administrators. Rather, its designers saw it as a reform agency that would advance and protect democracy by countering totalitarian appeals to young people and by equalizing educational opportunities for rich and poor. Woven into the successive drafts establishing the NYA, these twin purposes united the programs of planners as disparate as Aubrey W. Williams, Mary McLeod Bethune, John Studebaker, Eleanor Roosevelt, Charles Taussig, and FDR himself. Like their separate agendas, Reiman shows, the planners' shared concerns for democratic values were the products of thinking that had arisen during the Progressive Era - a time when an awareness of the social effects of child development first occurred. During the 1930s, fears of fascism and totalitarianism added fuel to these concerns and shaped much of the nature of the NYA's prewar appeal. Based on a wide range of sources, including NYA-related documents at the National Archives and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, "The New Deal and American Youth" is a study of this important agency. By showing how the NYA served as an instrument for realizing so many New Deal ambitions, it offers rich insights into not only the NYA but the New Deal as well.

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The author of Girlbomb describes her return to the New York City youth shelter in which she had lived as a teenage runaway, this time as a volunteer, and her relationship with Sam, a bright, sensitive, but troubled teenager from the Midwest, the product of an abusive home, who is struggling with the health effects of long-term drug abuse. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Each year, as many as 25,000 teenagers "age out" of foster care, usually when they turn eighteen. For years, a government agency had made every important decision for them. Suddenly, they are on their own, with no one to count on. What does it mean to be eighteen and on your own, without the family support and personal connections that most young people rely on? For many youth raised in foster care, it means largely unhappy endings, including sudden homelessness, unemployment, dead-end jobs, loneliness, and despair. On Their Own tells the compelling stories of ten young people whose lives are full of promise, but who face economic and social barriers stemming from the disruptions of foster care. This book calls for action to provide youth in foster care the same opportunities on the road to adulthood that most of our youth take for granted-access to higher education, vocational training, medical care, housing, and relationships within their communities. On Their Own is meant to serve as a clarion call not only to policymakers, but to all Americans who care about the futures of our young people.

Three incest survivors share their nightmarish experiences, their triumphs, and ongoing struggles to heal and live whole lives, in an updated and revised groundbreaking book that speaks directly to sexually abused teenagers. Original.