Working with Child and Adolescent Mental Health: The Central Role of Language and Communication

In children, mental health challenges and communication differences often combine in complex and inter-related ways. This practical book makes the case that communication should be a top consideration when we think about mental health. It is essential reading for SLTs, psychologists, mental health practitioners, educators, and social workers.

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In children, mental health challenges and communication differences typically combine in complex and inter-related ways. Remarkably, this crucial point is all too often forgotten, and communication is overlooked. Services are frequently fragmented, leading professionals to look at children through distinct lenses of either mental health or communication, meaning insights can be incomplete and important perspectives unshared.

Working with Child and Adolescent Mental Health makes the compelling case that communication is central and should be a primary consideration whenever we think about children’s mental health. With a practical focus, and an easy- to-read format, it suggests how this can be achieved by identifying how practitioners and services can work more cohesively to understand and optimise children’s communication capacities.

This book includes:



Practical advice, grounded in current research, and presented in an easy-to-read, digestible style
Guidance to help practitioners competently and compassionately identify and respond to the needs of children and young people with complex combined communication and mental health needs
Real-life case studies from a wide range of settings, unpicked to clearly illustrate topics discussed in the book and offer encouragement and inspiration to practitioners
Checklists and questionnaires to help practitioners in daily practice
Recommendations for, and links to, useful additional resources
Tools to support reflection and enhancement for individual practitioners and services

Essential reading for speech and language therapists, psychologists, mental health practitioners, educators, social workers, and anyone else concerned with children’s wellbeing and resilience, this book highlights the transformational impact of placing communication at the heart of all efforts to support children and young people’s mental health.