Sociology

Micheal Ungar (2006) in Chapters 3  4 of the book Strengths Based Counseling with At-Risk Youth proposes six strategies that parents and counselors could use to facilitate the development of healthy identities among the youth.  These strategies are helpful for the youth to explore ways to nurture their own resilience. Ungar (2006) by devoting a whole chapter to the first strategy is emphasizing the need to get this process right because it paves the way for easy transition into the succeeding strategies.  The first strategy involves allowing the youth to speak their truth without any judgment from the counselor or parent. Instead, the counselor or parent expresses curiosity in seeking to understand the behaviour and why it makes sense to the youth.  Ungar (2006) demonstrates through a transcript of a counseling session how the approach decreases the likelihood of resistance and therefore, increasing the future likelihood of cooperation from the youth in exploring opportunities.

The remaining strategies two to five are discussed in a separate chapter while the last strategy, substitute rather than suppress, was discussed in another separate chapter since as Ungar (2006) emphasized, this last strategy is the fulcrum or really the core of bringing all these strategies together.  These four middle strategies deal with how to help the youth explore their behaviour which is goal of strategy 2.  The challenge of the adult is to maintain tolerance for the youths behaviours so they are encouraged to let the adults understand their lives.  Usually behaviours are reactions to the current opportunities that they have. In strategy 3, counselors help the youth identify what opportunities are available and the more important part is how to discuss these opportunities such that they do not feel they are controlled.  Ungar (2006) presents an excellent list of examples about how to express ones ideas without threatening or being misinterpreted by the youth in the fourth strategy.  Highlighting ones differences from the stereotypes created is the focus of strategy 5 where Ungar (2006) vividly relates his own personal experience with a bully during his elementary years.  All these strategies are preparations or ways of setting the stage so that the counselor or parent will be able to present the substitutions smoothly.

These two chapters are indeed very informative and find relevant application in my current work.  Ungar (2006) has detailed instructional approach for the strategies to develop resiliency.  Among the high school students that I work with, there are a number that can be considered at-risk.  Resistance is a common characteristic among those who are sent for counseling and they will most likely not offer helpful information for the counselor. The books discussion of strategy 1 will be very helpful in engaging these youth in the communication process.  Unlike traditional counseling approaches where the counselor takes on a more authoritative stance, this one invites the counselor to adopt an attitude of curiosity and imbibe that sense of genuine interest towards the client.

Strategies two to three outlines the helpful attitudes and skills that the counselor must have to bring the youth to become interested of some unrecognized inner capacities and acknowledge the opportunities that hisher environment can offer.  In the first strategy, the counselor is able to submerge himherself into the life and world of the youth devoid of biases and judgment.  The succeeding strategies are meant to let the counselor use what he has learned from the youth and reconstruct these into more positive elements which will comprise as the options that will be presented.  However, beyond this technique of building on the strengths to create alternatives for the youth, the more important insights gathered from this chapter are the ways to make the youth think about his or her behaviour and make him or her acknowledge the strengths and the opportunities.  In youth work, there are different types of programs that may be given however, the approach matters.  Only when the youth is able to embrace the intervention can she be engaged in finding solutions and alternatives.  This is what Ungars (2006) approach is able to address and one that can be very helpful in nurturing a positive relationship with the youth.