Mario Cossa is a certified Trainer, Educator and Practitioner in Psychodrama, and Fellow of the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. He is a leading Drama Therapist and Theatre Educator, specialising in work with adolescent groups and trauma survivors, who has conducted training workshops in psychodrama, action methods and applied drama all over the world.

This is a challenging and exciting book and I loved it. It grapples with some of the most pressing issues facing both organisations and individuals seeking to work with young people in empowering ways.There is a real richness in the variety of contributions many showing snapshots of young people taking centre stage in their own life dramas. The contributors offer us a variety of experiences in different contexts, including health, education and juvenile youth justice. This book doesn't shy away from the politics of working with young people and is not afraid of discussing some of the contradictory tensions and dynamics that are at play in this work. It manages to be both a valuable resource and also deeply optimistic - an irresistible combination.

• Part I: The Curtain Rises. 1. Warming up: Introducing action methods and work with young people, Anne Bannister and Annie Huntington. 2. Setting the scene: Child development and the use of action methods, Anne Bannister. 3. Pause for thought: Action or stillness in therapeutic work with young people? Sue Jennings and Andy Hickson. Part II: Action across organisational divides: Health, education and the juvenile justice system. 4. Freeing the self: Psychodrama techniques with children and adolescents who stammer, Gail Smith. 5. Where there is drama there can also be art: Using creative media with children living with life threatening illness, Kate Kirk. 6. Can we do something? Young people using action methods to support each other in school, Nick Luxmoore. 7. Let's make a bridge!: Working in action with autistic children, Sandra Grieve and Ioanna Gagani. 8. Providing dance movement therapy within a mainstream school, Sue Curtis. 9. Psychodrama with 'at risk' youth: A means of active engagement, Erica Hollander. 10. Drago-drama: Archetypal sociodrama with adolescents, Mario Cossa. Part III: Action methods and child maltreatment. 11. The use of action methods in the treatment of the attachment difficulties of long-term fostered and adopted children, Paul Holmes. 12. The Yellow Brick Road: Helping children and adolescents to recover a coherent story following abusive family experiences. Facilitated contact with birth parents using the Therapeutic Spiral Model, Chip Chimera. 13. Touch me - NO! Creative therapies with young sexually abused children, Cristina Citron. Part IV: The Curtain Falls. 14. Resisting change: What stops us acting for young people? Annie Huntington. References. Index.