Therapeutically Engaging Young Survivors of Violence, Exploitation, Abuse, and Neglect

Therapeutically Engaging Young Survivors of Violence, Exploitation, Abuse, and Neglect: A Critical Social Work Approach highlights that the current trauma model in social work, psychology and counselling with children and young people operates from a biomedical lens.

This book argues that taken-for-granted notions of ‘child’ or ‘young person’, ‘maltreatment’, and ‘trauma’ are embedded within intervention and dictate the way professionals engage with young survivors. Using a critical social work lens to critique these notions by bringing together forty years of practice and research by the author, opens up the area of therapeutic intervention to current critical, socio-political, and cultural thought. Exploring the issue as a human right, mainly a child rights lens, while simultaneously intersecting this exploration with critical race, feminist, and post-colonial theorising, provides a socio-political underpinning to examine therapeutic intervention in children's and young people's lives. Weaving together the expertise of both young survivors and the author to provide insight into current therapeutic interventions, this book invites practitioners to critically reflect on how they engage with young citizens who have experienced violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. Each chapter also includes questions for further reflection to help further discussion around the issues raised by the book.

Ideal for course usage across Australia as well as internationally, this book will be of interest to all scholars, students and practitioners working in the fields of social work, psychology, and counselling.