'Shrinking the Smirch: The Young People's Edition' is a workbook to help young people manage stress, gain confidence, resist peer pressure and stay healthy. This book helps young people cope with the usual challenges of being a young adults including anxiety, peer pressure, exam stress, bullying, social media, etc. and is also appropriate for clinical conditions such as panic, eating problems, self harm and low mood. This resource is about the mind, what goes on in your head and coping with all the pressure and challenges young people have to face at home and school. This unique workbook for teenagers asks you to pretend these tricky thoughts and feelings are coming from a smirch, an unkind imaginary friend, a mind bully who wants to pull you into the pit of despair. This resource gives a lot of ideas about how you can beat this mind bully and cope better with all the thoughts and feelings that make you anxious, lonely and upset. It has been written with the help of a diverse group of young people who have shared their stories so you can see you are not alone and that there are things you can do to make life feel better. Jo Johnson has been working as a neuropsychologist for eighteen years. She worked for two decades within the NHS but now works as an independent consultant teaching and writing for several of the national neurology charities. Her specialist interests include brain injury, dementia and multiple sclerosis. She has written several books to meet the needs of children who have a parent with a neurological diagnosis including 'How to talk to your kids about MS' and 'My parent has a brain injury; a guide for young people'.

Shrinking the smirch is a unique workbook for anybody who is living with a long term physical or psychological condition including MS, Parkinson's, brain injury, epilepsy, chronic fatigue, epilepsy, stroke, cancer, depression, eating disorders, trauma or anxiety. The workbook: asks the reader to think about their symptoms as something external to them - a smirch. A smirch is an annoying little imaginary creature who seeks to make humans sad and unhealthy. It helps you work out what your smirch makes you think, feel and do and create an image or description of your own smirch. It includes twenty practical ways to shrink your smirch ideas, based on psychological approaches that have been proven to work including narrative therapy, CBT. ACT, systemic and solution focused models as well as mindfulness and positive psychological. This book offers a dynamic approach to managing mental and physical health challenges. Written in an accessible but unpatronising manner with marvellous pictures and some positive humour make it an easy read and will be a very useful resource for individuals with health conditions as well as therapists, teachers, life coaches and health professionals. "Reading this book has helped me so much than I thought possible. It's ideas can be used to help so many different situations". (Annabel). Suffered a major bereavement.

"Shrinking the smirch is a unique workbook for anybody who is living with a long term physical or psychological condition including MS, Parkinson's, brain injury, epilepsy, chronic fatigue, epilepsy, stroke, cancer, depression, eating disorders, trauma or anxiety. The workbook: asks the reader to think about their symptoms as something external to them - a smirch. A smirch is an annoying little imaginary creature who seeks to make humans sad and unhealthy. It helps you work out what your smirch makes you think, feel and do and create an image or description of your own smirch. It includes twenty practical ways to shrink your smirch ideas, based on psychological approaches that have been proven to work including narrative therapy, CBT. ACT, systemic and solution focused models as well as mindfulness and positive psychological. This book offers a dynamic approach to managing mental and physical health challenges. Written in an accessible but unpatronising manner with marvellous pictures and some positive humour make it an easy read and will be a very useful resource for individuals with health conditions as well as therapists, teachers, life coaches and health professionals. "Reading this book has helped me so much than I thought possible. It's ideas can be used to help so many different situations". (Annabel). Suffered a major bereavement."--Provided by publisher.

This impressively honest book explores the effects a challenging disability or illness can have on the mind and personal relationships, and how friends, family and professionals can help. Illness or disability can isolate people by creating vast differences in their experiences where previously there were none. Friends and family can find themselves saying the wrong thing or awkwardly avoiding topics as a result. This book takes a candid look at how discomfort caused by an illness can strain a relationship between partners, families and professionals, as well as how understanding feelings of guilt or shame can transform a situation or relationship. The insights and advice offered in this book can help children and adolescents overcome anxiousness caused by a parent's condition, improve communication between partners and family members, and increase professionals' awareness of how a client feels about their situation.

The Autism Resource Manual for Families is a treasure trove of practical, realistic and achievable strategies to support neurodivergent young people and their families with everyday life. Clearly laid out for easy use and access, it explains autism in context and provides ideas that are relevant not just for parents and carers, but for family support workers, social workers and family intervention teams. The resource covers a wide range of situations and offers an array of supports, with key topics ranging from anxiety, behaviour, and communication, to socialising, family life, and moving towards independence. With the lived experiences of parents and autistic children and young people in mind, this empowering manual includes: A wealth of situations from daily life, clearly addressed with examples of how autistic individuals may experience these and practical strategies for effective support Encouragement for parents and mini mantras for autistic children and young people to use in different situations Strategies for supporting autistic children in daily family life, including working with siblings, family holidays and eating out Advice for helping autistic young people through school, including attendance, homework and after-school exhaustion Guidance on initiating and carrying out productive conversations, as well as downloadable resources for visual conversation support. This book will be an essential tool for parents and carers of neurodivergent children and young people, as well as family or parent support workers and family intervention teams. It will also be valuable reading for pastoral teams, CAMHS, and social workers supporting these families.

This highly practical resource book is full of realistic and achievable strategies to help teachers to support neurodiverse students in a range of situations that, whilst often seemingly insignificant, can quickly become substantial and disruptive challenges in the mainstream classroom. Written with the busy teacher in mind, chapters are easy to dip in and out of, with jargon-free language and simple explanations which are easy to understand and put into practice. Clear chapters explore a variety of situations and topics to help children engage in their learning and make the classroom a safe and inviting place to be for autistic students. Key features include: Practical and achievable strategies to support autistic students in the mainstream classroom Real-life scenarios to help you find concrete solutions to issues as they arise Memorable mantras and quick quotes to help embed strategies in everyday practice for both students and teachers Photocopiable and downloadable resource sheets Written by an advisory teacher for autism with a wealth of experience, this book will be an invaluable tool for both primary and secondary teachers in mainstream settings, as well as other education professionals.