Strengths-Based Counseling With At-Risk Youth
Purchase
Description
"An eye-opening and heart-opening book."
-Bonnie Benard, Senior Program Associate, WestEd
Identify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.
Now more than ever, counselors, teachers, community youth workers, and parents are striving to prevent individual and school-wide tragedy before it happens. Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescent experience. In this book, author and social worker Michael Ungar takes a fresh, hopeful approach to challenging youth by looking beyond the surface of "bad" behaviors to understand them as ways of coping with life's adversities.
Strengths-Based Counseling With At-Risk Youth provides the tools both to understand and access strengths buried beneath problem behaviors. It offers specific, effective strategies in working with adolescents to construct positive identities and realistic action plans. Features include
- Six strategies for youth engagement, covering common problem behaviors such as drug use, violence, delinquency, and promiscuity
- An entire chapter on bullying
- An abundance of real-life examples and counseling narratives
- A Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory to assess resilience and identify areas that need strengthening
Sincere application of Ungar's compassionate and open-minded strategies is sure to transform the lives of countless adolescents in need, and the institutions that serve them.
Contents
Preface
Preface
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
About the Author
- Chapter 1. Surviving and Thriving
- The Many Ways Youth Survive
- Three Survival Strategies, Three Identities
- Power and Self-Definition
- Substitution as Intervention
- Narrative Interventions
- Powerful Alternatives
- Chapter 2. Three Identities: Pandas, Chameleons, and Leopards
- The Stuck Panda
- The Uncertain Chameleon
- The Demanding Leopard
- Pegs and Holes
- Chapter 3. Six Strategies for Nurturing Resilience
- Overview of the Six Strategies
- Paths to Resilience: Conventional and Unconventional
- Strategy 1: Hear Their Truth
- Chapter 4. From Truth to Action: Implementing Strategies Two Through Five
- Strategy 2: Help Youth Look Critically at Their Behavior
- Strategy 3: Create Opportunities That Fit With What Youth Say They Need
- Strategy 4: Speak In Ways Youth Will Hear and Respect
- Strategy 5: Find the Difference That Counts the Most
- Chapter 5. The Many Expressions of Youth Resilience
- Strategy 6: Substitute Rather Than Suppress
- Substitutions for Drug Use
- Substitutions for Other At-Risk Behaviors
- The Many Expressions of Resilience
- Chapter 6. A New Way to Look at Bullying
- Bullying as Coping: Jake
- Bullying and the Three Identities
- Providing Opportunities for Adaptation
- Substitutions for Bullies
- Substitutions for Victims
- Chapter 7. Assessing Resilience
- The Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Evaluating Fairly
- Chapter 8. Translating the Results of the Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Pandas Shoot
- Chameleons Score
- Leopards Win
- Using Results to Inform Our Efforts
- Conclusion: The Need for Change
References
References
Index
Index
Description
"An eye-opening and heart-opening book."
-Bonnie Benard, Senior Program Associate, WestEd
Identify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.
Now more than ever, counselors, teachers, community youth workers, and parents are striving to prevent individual and school-wide tragedy before it happens. Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescent experience. In this book, author and social worker Michael Ungar takes a fresh, hopeful approach to challenging youth by looking beyond the surface of "bad" behaviors to understand them as ways of coping with life's adversities.
Strengths-Based Counseling With At-Risk Youth provides the tools both to understand and access strengths buried beneath problem behaviors. It offers specific, effective strategies in working with adolescents to construct positive identities and realistic action plans. Features include
- Six strategies for youth engagement, covering common problem behaviors such as drug use, violence, delinquency, and promiscuity
- An entire chapter on bullying
- An abundance of real-life examples and counseling narratives
- A Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory to assess resilience and identify areas that need strengthening
Sincere application of Ungar's compassionate and open-minded strategies is sure to transform the lives of countless adolescents in need, and the institutions that serve them.
Contents
Preface
Preface
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments
About the Author
- Chapter 1. Surviving and Thriving
- The Many Ways Youth Survive
- Three Survival Strategies, Three Identities
- Power and Self-Definition
- Substitution as Intervention
- Narrative Interventions
- Powerful Alternatives
- Chapter 2. Three Identities: Pandas, Chameleons, and Leopards
- The Stuck Panda
- The Uncertain Chameleon
- The Demanding Leopard
- Pegs and Holes
- Chapter 3. Six Strategies for Nurturing Resilience
- Overview of the Six Strategies
- Paths to Resilience: Conventional and Unconventional
- Strategy 1: Hear Their Truth
- Chapter 4. From Truth to Action: Implementing Strategies Two Through Five
- Strategy 2: Help Youth Look Critically at Their Behavior
- Strategy 3: Create Opportunities That Fit With What Youth Say They Need
- Strategy 4: Speak In Ways Youth Will Hear and Respect
- Strategy 5: Find the Difference That Counts the Most
- Chapter 5. The Many Expressions of Youth Resilience
- Strategy 6: Substitute Rather Than Suppress
- Substitutions for Drug Use
- Substitutions for Other At-Risk Behaviors
- The Many Expressions of Resilience
- Chapter 6. A New Way to Look at Bullying
- Bullying as Coping: Jake
- Bullying and the Three Identities
- Providing Opportunities for Adaptation
- Substitutions for Bullies
- Substitutions for Victims
- Chapter 7. Assessing Resilience
- The Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Evaluating Fairly
- Chapter 8. Translating the Results of the Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Pandas Shoot
- Chameleons Score
- Leopards Win
- Using Results to Inform Our Efforts
- Conclusion: The Need for Change
References
References
Index
Index
Reviews
March 2006 | 144 pages | Corwin
| Format | Published Date | ISBN | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paperback | 01/02/2026 | 9781412928205 | $37.95 |
| Hardcover | 01/02/2026 | 9781412928199 | $79.95 |
| Lifetime | 01/02/2026 | 9781483362014 | $35.00 |
"An eye-opening and heart-opening book."
-Bonnie Benard, Senior Program Associate, WestEd
Identify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.
Now more than ever, counselors, teachers, community youth workers, and parents are striving to prevent individual and school-wide tragedy before it happens. Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescent experience. In this book, author and social worker Michael Ungar takes a fresh, hopeful approach to challenging youth by looking beyond the surface of "bad" behaviors to understand them as ways of coping with life's adversities.
Strengths-Based Counseling With At-Risk Youth provides the tools both to understand and access strengths buried beneath problem behaviors. It offers specific, effective strategies in working with adolescents to construct positive identities and realistic action plans. Features include
- Six strategies for youth engagement, covering common problem behaviors such as drug use, violence, delinquency, and promiscuity
- An entire chapter on bullying
- An abundance of real-life examples and counseling narratives
- A Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory to assess resilience and identify areas that need strengthening
Sincere application of Ungar's compassionate and open-minded strategies is sure to transform the lives of countless adolescents in need, and the institutions that serve them.
Table Of Contents:
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Chapter 1. Surviving and Thriving
- The Many Ways Youth Survive
- Three Survival Strategies, Three Identities
- Power and Self-Definition
- Substitution as Intervention
- Narrative Interventions
- Powerful Alternatives
- Chapter 2. Three Identities: Pandas, Chameleons, and Leopards
- The Stuck Panda
- The Uncertain Chameleon
- The Demanding Leopard
- Pegs and Holes
- Chapter 3. Six Strategies for Nurturing Resilience
- Overview of the Six Strategies
- Paths to Resilience: Conventional and Unconventional
- Strategy 1: Hear Their Truth
- Chapter 4. From Truth to Action: Implementing Strategies Two Through Five
- Strategy 2: Help Youth Look Critically at Their Behavior
- Strategy 3: Create Opportunities That Fit With What Youth Say They Need
- Strategy 4: Speak In Ways Youth Will Hear and Respect
- Strategy 5: Find the Difference That Counts the Most
- Chapter 5. The Many Expressions of Youth Resilience
- Strategy 6: Substitute Rather Than Suppress
- Substitutions for Drug Use
- Substitutions for Other At-Risk Behaviors
- The Many Expressions of Resilience
- Chapter 6. A New Way to Look at Bullying
- Bullying as Coping: Jake
- Bullying and the Three Identities
- Providing Opportunities for Adaptation
- Substitutions for Bullies
- Substitutions for Victims
- Chapter 7. Assessing Resilience
- The Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Evaluating Fairly
- Chapter 8. Translating the Results of the Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory
- Pandas Shoot
- Chameleons Score
- Leopards Win
- Using Results to Inform Our Efforts
- Conclusion: The Need for Change
- References
- Index