An eyeopening and heartopening book.Bonnie Benard Senior Program Associate WestEdIdentify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.Now more than... » 

An eyeopening and heartopening book.Bonnie Benard Senior Program Associate WestEdIdentify and promote overlooked strengths to cultivate resilience.Now more than ever counselors teachers community youth workers and parentsare striving to prevent individual and schoolwide tragedy before it happens.Critical to the success of their efforts is a deep respect for the adolescentexperience. In this book author and social worker Michael Ungar takes a freshhopeful approach to challenging youth by looking beyond the surface of badbehaviors to understand them as ways of coping with lifes adversities.StrengthsBased Counseling With AtRisk Youth provides the tools both tounderstand and access strengths buried beneath problem behaviors. It offersspecific effective strategies in working with adolescents to constructpositive identities and realistic action plans. Features includeSix strategies for youth engagement covering common problem behaviors such asdrug use violence delinquency and promiscuityAn entire chapter on bullyingAn abundance of reallife examples and counseling narrativesA Resilient Youth Strengths Inventory to assess resilience and identify areasthat need strengtheningSincere application of Ungars compassionate and openminded strategies is sureto transform the lives of countless adolescents in need and the institutionsthat serve them. «