Training for counselling young people - What is added by a child and adolescent specialism?

Working with older adolescents and young adults is somewhat disputed territory. Those with qualifications in work with adults can easily adapt to working with this age-group, and historically this has been the most usual route into the role. In this paper, I argue, however, that there is likely to be a difference between their approach and that of those who have had a specialist training to work with children and adolescents. Such trainings are likely to imbue in clinicians a much stronger awareness of: the developmental perspective; the power of ongoing family dynamics; the vexed trajectory into individual independence and identity formation and the particular vicissitudes of the learning experience. Experience of having also worked with younger children provides counsellors/therapists with a different appreciation of defensive constellations and a nuanced awareness of transference dynamics when the age and status differences between practitioner and client are greater. Working with younger people also requires a sophisticated understanding of organisational dynamics - which are less likely to feature in adult trainings. These elements provide a significantly different perspective on the work which therefore suggests that specialist training input is of great value. Examples are given in the paper to illustrate these ideas.