Narrating Practice with Children and Adolescents

Loretta Pyles, University at Albany:
Through brave story-telling, this volume reveals the lived experiences, creativity, and agency of children and youth. Whether concerned with the child welfare system, schools, incarceration, or mental health, the authors bring a critical lens to the role that systems play in oppression and liberation. Using reflexivity, auto-ethnography, and case reflections, the authors also reveal their whole selves as they negotiate their realities as social workers and reflect on their own experiences as vulnerable children.

Irwin Epstein, Hunter College, City University of New York:
With respect and without condescension, Diaz and Shepard remind us how resilient children are —their stories defying deficit-based clinical categorization. We have much to learn from these narratives of coping and adaptation. Combining case studies and auto-ethnography with a narrative focus, this is social work research at its most acute and innovative.

Stanley Witkin, author of Transforming Social Work: Social Constructionist Reflections on Contemporary and Enduring Issues:
Exploring children’s lives through narrative lenses illuminates aspects of their lived experience that are often invisible or overlooked in conventional research studies. Such information enriches our understanding of children’s lives, enabling a more holistic context from which new and relevant practices can be developed. As such, the book is an important addition to social work curricula and a useful resource for practitioners.