What to read after Child and Adolescent Treatment for Social Work Practice?

Over the last several years, social work schools have firmly established child and adolescent treatment issues as an essential part of the curriculum at all levels of education. And every year thousands of students are placed in settings serving this population. But too many in the profession -- students or recent graduates -- are sent out into the field without adequate preparation. There they discover that they have had neither the theoretical classroom preparation nor exposure to the kinds of cases they will face daily, often under the most trying circumstances. Although a few textbooks have been written about working with young children in practice settings, until now none has provided the theoretical framework and concrete help necessary for working with children from the first years through adolescence.

In response to this pressing need, Dr. Theresa Aiello of New York University has written Child and Adolescent Treatment for Social Work Practice: A Relational Perspective for Beginning Clinicians. Infused with authority, wisdom, and caring that have resulted from twenty-five years of agency, community, and clinical practice, consultation, and classroom teaching, Dr. Aiello introduces and covers comprehensively all the major therapeutic issues and treatment modalities, including play, family, and group therapy.

This up-to-date text deftly integrates contemporary relational psychoanalytic theory and social thought, and addresses the kinds of severe trauma cases most child and adolescent therapists actually encounter. Chapters cover posttraumatic stress, physical illness, delinquency and antisocial behavior, divorce, and single-parent families by way of actual treatment scenariosand in-depth case examples. Dr. Aiello weaves in such crucial issues as poverty, AIDS, bicultural issues and sexuality, as well as sexual orientation. She offers detailed case vignettes that feature actual dialogue rarely seen in child therapy texts, covering a wide array of child services including outpatient and residential treatment, foster care, and school settings.

Child and Adolescent Treatment for Social Work Practice clearly demonstrates the intricacies of therapy for students and seasoned practitioners alike. Child therapists, social work students, and guidance counselors will all find this text to be an invaluable guide to their chosen occupation.