Back to Institute Archive" New Book: Helping Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties Make a Successful Entry into Adulthood "
Moving from adolescence to adulthood is challenging under the best of circumstances. For young people with emotional or behavioral difficulties, these years can be even more of a struggle. A new book, Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties, provides practical and proven methods for helping young people move into the world of career-oriented education, work, and independent living.
The book, co-edited by Hewitt "Rusty" Clark, Professor in the Department of Child and Family Studies, Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida and Maryann Davis of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, brings together premier researchers, practitioners, and educators to provide practical guidance for helping young people successfully transition into adult life. Each chapter also contains the personal perspectives and experiences of young adults as co-authors.
In the introduction, the editors note that, "the issues facing these young people as they leave childhood and children's services and enter adulthood are daunting. They face the challenges that all young people face at this time in their lives yet they carry the added burden of an invisible disability. Few appropriate services exist to support them, and no unified public agency is available to help these young people and their families as they move into adulthood."
The book emphasizes practices to assist young people pursue their interest and goals and explores strategies for handling key issues such as drug and alcohol use, changing peer and family relations, anger and impulse management, and crime. It is a user-friendly handbook for practitioners, educators, administrators, parents and advocates.
Organized into five sections, the first section of the book looks at the systems that serve young adults with emotional or behavioral difficulties and gives the reader a framework for the development and operation of a transition system. The second acquaints the reader with science-based treatment practices and interventions that are being applied to help young people achieve success in the areas of employment, education, living situation, and community life. The third provides the perspectives of young people and parents, and discusses the roles youth, parents, other natural supports such as clergy, coaches, and extended family members play in the transition process. The fourth section discusses funding and policy issues and the fifth provides relevant agendas for future advocacy, system reform and research.
Transition to Adulthood: A Resource for Assisting Young People with Emotional or Behavioral Difficulties is a new volume in the Systems of Care for Children's Mental Health Series. It can be ordered through its publisher, Brookes Publishing Company at 1-800-638-3775 or www.brookespublishing.com.