From Birth to Sixteen

Helen Cowie is Professor Emeritus and Director of the UK Observatory for the Promotion of Non-Violence (www.ukobservatory.com) at the University of Surrey in the Faculty of Health and Medicine. A psychologist by background, she teaches a range of education, psychology, and health and social care students. For over 20 years she has specialized in strategies to counteract school bullying, including peer support as an effective intervention that empowers children and young people to take action themselves to help other young people who are experiencing social and emotional difficulties. Her widely-used training manual Peer Support in Action, co-authored with Patti Wallace, influenced practice in the UK and other European countries. In 2009 it was translated into Japanese following a long-standing collaboration with the Japanese Peer Support Association. In Managing School Violence, she and co-author Dawn Jennifer designed training for a whole-school approach to reduce and prevent bullying, while New Perspectives on Bullying emphasized the importance of fostering positive relationships in the school community as a whole and provided a wealth of evidence-based good practice for professionals. Her co-authored book Understanding Children's Development remains one of the most popular undergraduate psychology textbooks in the field and a fifth edition was published in 2011.

1 The developing child 2 The evolving sense of self and others 3 Attachment 4 Peer relationships in day care, nursery and school 5 Language and communication 6 The impact of traditional and new media 7 Addiction, obesity, and eating disorders 8 Safe and risky sexual behaviour 9 Emotional health and well-being