Working with Adolescents: A Guide for Practitioners

Julie Anne Laser, PhD, MSW, LCSW, is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, where she coordinates the high-risk youth track of the MSW curriculum as well as teaches in the clinical and research series. Dr. Lasers research focus is on adolescent resiliency, particularly the relevance of specific ecological and internal protective and risk factors by culture and gender. She recently completed large studies of resilience in Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Senegalese youth and homeless teens in the United States. Projects are under way to evaluate resilience in Latin American youth. Dr. Laser has more than 20 years of clinical social work experience and has worked in Mexico, Switzerland, Japan, and China, as well as a variety of urban and rural settings in the United States. She is particularly interested in school social work.  Nicole Nicotera, PhD, MSW, LICSW, is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver, where she teaches clinical practice theories and skills and a doctoral research course in qualitative analysis. Dr. Nicoteras research and scholarship focus on measuring civic development in children, interventions to enhance civic leadership and positive youth development, the influences of neighborhood collective socialization and social cohesion on young people, and issues of unearned privilege and oppression in social work practice, education, and research. Her recent research with young people in public housing neighborhoods examines civic engagement and the capacity of youth to act as agents of neighborhood change. As a clinical social worker, Dr. Nicotera worked with children, youth, and families in a community mental health center, where she used art, play, and sand-tray therapies, as well as other intervention modalities. She also has extensive school social work experience with seriously emotionally and behaviorally challenged children.