Child Agency and Voice in Therapy offers innovatory ways of thinking about, and working with, children in therapy. The book: considers different practices such as respecting the rights of the child in therapy and recognising and listening to children as ‘active agents’ and ‘experts’; features approaches that: access children’s views of their therapy; engage with them as researchers or co-researchers; and that use play and arts-based methods; draws on arts therapies research in ways that enable insight and learning for all those engaged with children’s therapy and wellbeing; considers how the contexts of the therapy, such as a school or counselling centre, relate to the ways children experience themselves and their therapy in relation to rights, agency and voice. Child Agency and Voice in Therapy will be beneficial for all child therapists and is a good resource for courses concerning childhood welfare, therapy, education, wellbeing and mental health.

This volume of the Research in Global Child Advocacy Series explores participatory methodologies and tools that involve children in research. Perspectives on the role of children have transitioned from viewing children as objects of research, to children as subjects of research, to acknowledgement of children as competent contributors and agents throughout the inquiry process. Researchers continue to explore approaches that honor the capacity of children, drawing on diverse methodologies to elevate children’s voices and actively engage them in the production of knowledge. Nonetheless, despite these developments, questions over the extent to which children can be free of adult filters and influence merits sustained scholarly attention. The book includes chapters that critically examine methodological approaches that empower children in the research process. Contributions include empirical or practitioner pieces that operate from an empowerment paradigm and demonstrate the agenic capacity of children to contribute their perspectives and voices to our understanding of childhood and children’s lives. The text also features conceptual pieces that challenge existing theoretical frameworks, critique research paradigms, and analyze dilemmas or tensions related to ethics, policy and power relations in the research process.

This book outlines the key findings from the ADVOST project and other international projects that examine how educational practitioners have utilised theoretical notions of voice and agency to enhance the social inclusion and wellbeing of children within their settings. Bringing together findings from three project case studies that are each placed in a different national context, chapters explore theoretical principles of space, audience and influence to facilitate and enhance the voices of very young children. Focusing on diversity as an opportunity rather than a challenge, the book provides collaboratively written and regionally diverse chapters that ultimately contribute to a growing field on literature examining how young people might be included in culturally sensitive and responsive ways within education, recognising the diversity that young people, their families and communities bring to educational processes to provide an inclusive education for all. Offering multiple perspectives and insights into our growing understanding of children’s voice and agency in diverse settings, this book will be of relevance to scholars, researchers and academics in the fields of primary education, multicultural education, early years and educational research, and child development studies.

Unravelling Trauma and Weaving Resilience with Systemic and Narrative Therapy is an innovative book that details how clinicians can engage children, families and their networks in creative and collaborative relationships to elicit change within the context of trauma and violence. Combining systemic, narrative and dialogical theoretical frameworks with clinical examples, this volume focuses on therapeutic conversations that can help children, and those involved with them, deconstruct their experienced difficulties, and create more hopeful stories and alternative ways of relating to one another through a sense of play. Vermeire advocates for serious playfulness as a way of directly addressing trauma and its effects, as well as along ‘trauma-sensitive’ side paths. Puppetry, artwork, interviews and theatre play are used to weave networks of resilience in ever-widening circles and this approach is informed by the awareness that individual problems are always to be seen as relational, social and political. This book is an important read for therapists and social workers who work with traumatised children and their multi-stressed families.

Combining social, psychological and child development aspects, this book provides a holistic view of how children develop agency.

The only comprehensive work on SED, with practical information on diagnosing and treating children with SED. Features contributions by leading experts of SED research and practice. Includes a foreword by Kay Jamison, a nationally recognized author on mental illness.