Counseling Children and Adolescents, 2nd edition

Published by Pearson (April 8, 2026) © 2027
  • Victoria E. Kress
  • Matthew J. Paylo
  • Nicole Stargell

Title overview

For courses in child and adolescent counseling and play therapy.

A practical, evidence-based introduction

Counseling Children and Adolescents empowers future counselors to thoughtfully and deliberately help young clients tackle complex issues and difficulties. It covers the principal approaches to counseling children and adolescents, discusses the common issues that bring children and adolescents to counseling, and helps readers understand what counseling younger people looks like.

The 2nd Edition updates each chapter with the most current research and new content. It expands discussion of telehealth along with ethical and legal considerations in youth counseling, adds more applications and examples throughout, and much more.

Hallmark features of this title

  • The I CAN START conceptualization and treatment model:
    • Practical principles and specific treatment goals and objectives help guide novice counselors through selecting and implementing strength-based, contextually sensitive treatments into practice.
  • Evidence-based treatment techniques reflect the most recent research literature, offering readers current insight into important emerging approaches or counseling considerations.
  • 10 individual chapters are dedicated to common struggles faced by children and adolescents, with practical approaches by counselors to help their young clients.
  • Clinical case studies are examined and bring to life common presenting concerns and associated treatment plans.

New and updated features of this title

  • Increased focus on telehealth and technology reflects the rapid growth of these topics in recent years.
  • Stronger emphasis on youth addressing threats of violence reflects this increasingly significant issue.
  • New material on counseling neurodivergent youth helps future counselors integrate those clients' strengths into practice, exploring neurodiversity-affirming care, expanded coverage and limitations of ABA, and new guidance.
  • A new clinical toolbox activity helps students gain insight into their own unique characteristics, adding detail on the “I”: Individual component of the I CAN START model.
  • Discussion of ethical and legal considerations in youth counseling has been expanded.
  • More applications and examples in each chapter support students in practicing how to apply the material.

Key features

Features of Pearson+ eTextbook for the 2nd Edition

  • Expanded content on youth mental health highlights the counselor’s role supporting youth in this area, and provides information on specialized certification.
  • LMS-Compatible Assessment Bank: All quizzes, application exercises, and chapter tests are included in LMS-compatible banks for Blackboard, Canvas, D2L, and Moodle. These packaged files give instructors maximum flexibility for importing, assigning, and grading. Assessment types include:
    • Chapter Review Quizzes written by the authors and aligned to the text’s Learning Objectives: Higher-order, multiple-choice questions in each quiz also provide correct answers and distractors, and explain why each response is correct or incorrect.
    • Application Exercises that provide links to counselling videos or counselling scenarios and ask students to apply what they’ve learned. A model response is provided for each exercise.
    • Chapter Tests: Suggested test items are provided for each chapter, and include questions in multiple-choice and short answer/essay formats.

Table of contents

  1. Developmentally Informed Youth Counseling
  2. Systemically Informed Youth Counseling
  3. Individual Counseling in Action: Principles, Techniques, and Best Practices
  4. Ethical and Legal Foundations
  5. Counseling Theories That Focus on Thought and Behavior Change and Action
  6. Counseling Theories That Focus on Background Experiences and Relationships
  7. Counseling Theories That Focus on Family Change Processes
  8. The Use of Play and Creative Arts in Counseling
  9. Conceptualizing Young Clients’ Situations and Directing Counseling
  10. Youth Suicide, Self-Injury, and Homicide
  11. Family-Related Transitions and Struggles
  12. Academic and Social-Emotional Transitions and Concern
  13. Neurodiversity and Neurodivergences
  14. Externalized Behavior Concerns
  15. Abuse and Trauma
  16. Substance Use and Addictions
  17. Anxiety, Obsessive-Compulsive, and Related Disorders
  18. Depressive and Bipolar Disorders
  19. Physical Health-Related Counseling Concerns

Author bios

About our authors

Victoria E. Kress, Ph.D./LPCC-S (OH), NCC, CCMHC (she/her) is distinguished professor, counseling clinic director, and the director of the clinical mental health and addictions counseling programs at Youngstown State University. She has extensive experience advocating for the counseling profession and those served, and she previously worked as the Director of Advocacy for the National Board of Certified Counselors. She has nearly 3 decades of clinical experience working with youth and adults in various settings, including community mental health centers, hospitals, residential treatment facilities, private practices, and college counseling centers. She has published over 140 refereed articles and book chapters, and she has co-authored 7 books on counseling youth and adults. She has been identified as a top producer/published author in counseling journals. She previously served as an editor of the American Counseling Association’s (ACA) Practice Briefs and the Journal of Mental Health Counseling, as an editorial board member for the Journal of Counseling and Development, and many other counseling journals.

Victoria has lectured throughout the United States and internationally on various counselor practice topics. She served 2 terms as a governor-appointed member of the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board and served as the chair of the board’s Ethics Committee. She also served as the ethics liaison for Ohio’s state regulatory board, and serves as a consultant/expert witness for counselor ethics cases.

She is the recipient of over 50 professional and community service awards, most of which were for her advocacy, leadership, scholarship, community service, and mentorship initiatives. She also has received awards for her work with people who have intellectual disabilities, for empowering girls in her community, for her sexual assault prevention efforts, and for her child abuse advocacy work. CACREP honored her with the Martin Ritchie Award for Excellence in Advocacy. She also received many American Counseling Association awards including the ACA Fellow Award, a Humanitarian and Caring Person Award, the Distinguished Mentor Award, the Counselor Educator Advocacy Award, and the Government Relations Award. She has been the recipient of the following Association for Counselor Education and Supervision (ACES) Awards: the Counseling Vision and Innovation Award, the Outstanding Mentor Award, the Robert Stripling Award for Excellence in Standards, and the Leadership Award. She has received a number of university awards (including the Giant Award, Distinguished Scholar, Distinguished Public Servant, Distinguished Teaching Award) as well as various Ohio Counseling Association awards, including their Counselor of the Year Award, the Research and Writing Award, the Legislative Advocacy Award, and their Leadership Award.

Victoria has served in over 100 professional service roles, chairing and serving on various committees and task forces for ACA as well as its divisions (such as AHC, ACES, ACC, AARC), AMHCA, CSI, NBCC, and OCA). She was elected to serve as the 75th President of the American Counseling Association (2026–27), and she is a past president of the Association for Humanistic Counseling, Chi Sigma Iota International, the Ohio Counseling Association, and the North Central Association for Counselor Education and Supervision; she is a past ACA region chair; and she is a member of ACA’s Governing Council. She has also worked and volunteered in Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia to promote mental health awareness, training, and the professionalization of counseling.

Matthew John Paylo, Ph.D./LPCC-S (OH), LPC (GA) (he/him) is the director of counseling programs and professor at Concordia University Irvine. He has over 16 years of experience in counselor education and 22 years of clinical experience in various settings, including community mental health centers, prisons, hospitals, adolescent residential treatment facilities, and college counseling centers. He is passionate about implementing evidence-based interventions within therapeutic relationships that highlight empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness.

Matthew has presented and published extensively in the areas of diagnosing and treating mental and emotional disorders. He co-authored 2 books on assessing, diagnosing, and treating mental and emotional disorders. In addition, he has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on trauma, evidence-based treatments, offender treatments, adolescent counseling, social justice counseling, and the implementation of the DSM. Matthew has received several teaching and research awards, including the Distinguished Professor of Teaching at Youngstown State University and the Research and Writing Award from the Ohio Counseling Association (OCA). In addition, he completed 2 terms as a governor-appointed member of the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapist Board, serving as OCSWMFT board chair and ethics board chair.

Nicole A. Stargell, Ph.D./LPCC (OH), LSC, NCC, BC-TMH (she/her) is a Professor in the Department of Counseling at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. She serves as the Department Chair, Testing Coordinator, and Faculty Co-Advisor of the Phi Sigma Chapter of Chi Sigma Iota. She is a member of the UNCP Institutional Review Board and the editorial board for Teaching and Supervision in Counseling. Nicole is the Editor of the North Carolina Counseling Association’s Carolina Counselor, Senior Chair of the ACA Research and Knowledge Committee, and a member of the Chi Sigma Iota International Excellence in Counseling Research Grants Committee. She earned her master’s degree from Youngstown State University in Ohio and her doctoral degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (both CACREP-accredited).

Nicole is a Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor in Ohio and North Carolina, a Licensed School Counselor in Ohio and North Carolina, a Board-Certified Telemental Health Provider, and a National Certified Counselor. Her counseling specialties include telecounseling, clinical diagnosis, and counseling children and adolescents.

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