Creative Storytelling with Children at Risk

Sue Jennings

This practical book will improve the play skills - through storytelling and storywork - of anyone working with children, especially with children 'at risk', such as looked-after children, or children suffering from trauma or abuse.

• Strongly rooted in the story tradition - folk tales and fairy tales, myths and legends, the ancient tale as well as the child's own story - this book enables the play worker to create a safe structure in order for children to play and through playing, share stories through movement, painting, clay, sandplay or drama.
• A narrative approach is an effective means of enabling children to communicate their experiences, fears, hopes and dreams. This book includes guidelines on all the play techniques and advice on unexpected disclosure or extreme reaction.
• Above all, this book puts the playing back into storywork, whereby the children are able to discover their own strengths and creative skills; to improve their forming of secure attachments with adults; to begin to understand their own behaviours and swings of mood and to understand the importance of communication in social skills.

  For one reason or another, many children in difficulty are excluded: from their school, their family, their social or cultural group. The methods in this book develop a framework of inclusion that brings some joy into the process of storytelling and integrates it as a social and cultural form for the benefit of children who are at risk.

  Contents
  Introduction; The story of stories; How to find this book useful; Children's stories and play development; Stories and pictures for assessment; Stories and games for our senses; Stories for feelings and emotions; The child's story; Fairy stories, myths and legends; Creating stories together; Resources

  About the Author
  Sue Jennings is a pioneer of Dramatherapy and the Playtherapy Method in the UK and abroad. She is Consultant to the Department of Child Health, University of Exeter. She has written more than fifteen books on working with children.

  Readership
  Psychotherapists, play therapists, drama therapists, teachers, social workers

  192pp, A4, wire-o-bound