Let's talk relationships with young people today

Lets Talk Relationships (2nd edition) by Vanessa Rogers

Reviewed by Counselling Children and Young People

The author of this book clearly has invaluable experience of working with young people and has produced a resource of activities that exudes enthusiasm and creativity. Her understanding of the difficulties faced by young people today is demonstrated by the way these are addressed in the different chapters. The activities aim to increase communication between young people, their parents, teachers and youth workers and to develop personal insight, wellbeing and, importantly, the safety of young people.

Getting To Know Each Other – the first of the main chapters – offers many different ways of helping the participants to feel comfortable in the group setting and supported by each other as well as by the facilitator. The next chapter, Friendships and Peer Groups, aims to develop awareness about, and the undesirability of, bullying, from both the receiving and delivering ends. Positive and negative aspects of friendships are also explored in this chapter – very important for young people who can be vulnerable in their teens.

Living at Home is addressed sensitively, and all of us who have or have had teenagers know how difficult this time can be, while those of us who work with them also know the difficulties they may experience. Practical help is also offered in this chapter for preparation towards living independently. Needless to say, the chapter Love, Sex and All That is Vital – full of sensible and understanding food for thought! In her introduction the author suggests that the activities in the Evaluation and Endings chapter ‘encourage young people to celebrate their achievements and help identify further needs’ – which sums it up very accurately.

I feel sure anyone working with young people would find this a beneficial and easily accessible resource. For those working with difficult youngsters resource who would not fit into a group and for parents who are finding communication difficult with their teenager(s), there are many varied ideas from which they, too, could choose.

available now from www.jkp.comwww.jkp.cISBN 978 – 1849051361 £17.99