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Live - Online Training
How to help troubled and troublesome teenagers
Effective new ways to: find out what the problem is, communicate with reluctant teens, discover their hidden strengths, promote positive behaviour change, improve their mental health – and much more…
Course Factfile
How to help troublesome teenagers Online Course
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Date: Tues 7th Oct 25
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Accredited CPD Certificate: 6 hours
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Length 1 day (9.15am–4.00pm BST)
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Tutor: Richard Brook
- Price: £145 per person
Course notes included and access to a recording of the event
£145.00
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The best live online I have attended so far and I’ve done eight! Everything was relevant – completely spot on
Teacher / Tutor
Limited Places – book early to ensure yours
Join Richard Brook for this live online training on working with troubled adolescents. Simply book your place and we will email you details of how to join the Zoom workshop the day before.
BONUS RECORDING – in case anyone experiences technical difficulties on the day we record the training, so you will also get a recording for a limited time afterwards to maximise your learning.
Can’t make this date? Please register your interest below.
Why take this course
This live online training event gives you the essential knowledge, tips and practical skills you need to help troubled teenagers unlock their potential and begin to build lives for themselves that work well.
Tutor Richard Brook has a wealth of hands-on practical experience in adolescent mental health and social work which he draws on throughout the day – you will have plenty of time to ask questions and discuss how you can implement the skills and techniques in your own work or with the teens you care for.
The programme is varied and intensive, yet lively with a strong focus on gaining skills. It clarifies what healthy teenage development looks like, why things can go wrong and the best ways to help young people overcome obstacles and begin to create lives for themselves that work well.
Richard also shows how, by working with the ‘givens’ of human nature, and ensuring that sound knowledge of how people really function is applied intelligently to teenagers, you can speed up progress, reduce anti-social behaviour and teen depression, and bring young people real benefits.
At the end of the day you will find yourself more empowered to respond effectively to each individual’s needs and temperament, whilst avoiding yourself the emotional pitfalls of working in stressful situations.
Such a realistic and logical approach – it's given me lots of ideas for working with a variety of people, not just teenagers!
Probation Officer
What will you learn
- An increased understanding of what drives most problematic behaviour, including anti-social behaviour
- Essential knowledge and skills to deliver effective interventions to young people, both individually and in groups
- A deeper understanding of the causes of adolescent mental health problems
- Simple yet effective techniques for engaging uncommunicative young people, building rapport and promoting behavioural changes
- Constructive ways to help prevent teenage depression, anxiety and stress
- Four vital guiding principles that ensure your work with young people is relevant and effective
- Ways to motivate young people and help them set achievable goals
- How to discover and build upon a young person’s strengths and engage them in practical problem-solving
- Knowledge of how the insights from the human givens approach can dramatically improve interventions and their outcomes
- Strategies for working with troubled youth
- The opportunity to discuss how you could implement these in your own work with a highly knowledgeable tutor who has years of hands-on experience
Also covered:
- The common misconceptions about adolescence
- What healthy teenage development looks like – this may bring you some surprises!
- A clear and logical foundation upon which to structure creative and effective interventions
- Ways to respond effectively to each individual’s needs, temperament and learning style
- How to avoid the emotional pitfalls of working in stressful situations
- An expanded repertoire of skills and a refined understanding of what works and – most importantly – why
Course Programme
The ‘How to help troubled and troublesome teenagers’ course starts at 9.15am and runs until 4.00pm (BST).
Who is this course suitable for?
- Anyone interested in improving adolescent mental health and reducing anti-social behaviour
- Anyone who has to deal or work with troubled and troublesome teens, including: teachers, youth workers, mentors, drug workers, social workers, schools counsellors, educational psychologists, primary mental health workers, all members of youth offending teams, youth justice workers, police and probation officers, prison staff, parents, residential and foster carers
- People who work directly with young people through sport and/or outside activities
- Many parents and even young people themselves have also found the course helpful.
This course is also available for inhouse training – see: City of London Police
This course on working with troubled teens has been independently accredited by the internationally recognised CPD Standards Office for 6 hours of CPD training.
On completion of this training you’ll receive CPD certificates from the College and the CPD Standards Office.
Register your interest – next date
If you can’t make this course, please complete the form below and we’ll email you when another date becomes available.
Tell others about this course
Very practical, useful advice and a new approach to bringing about behavioural change.
Garda Diversion Youth Project Co-ordinator (Police Juvenile Projects in Ireland)
….a very comprehensive and thoughtful course which covered a lot of information in an imaginative and interactive way. Well researched and professionally delivered – thank you. I will encourage others to attend.
Social Worker
Such a realistic and logical approach, it has given me lots of ideas for working with a variety of people, not just troublesome teenagers!
Probation Officer
Reviews for this course
4.5/5 (85 Reviews)
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How to help troubled and troublesome teenagers
Tues 7th October 2025 £145.00
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This course was exactly what I’d hoped it would be! It’s well-balanced, focusing on the neuroscience of young people’s brains, insights into issues we might experience as practitioners working with young people, and with lots of adaptable techniques to help us to connect, build rapport, and support young people to make changes in their lives. I felt the course was carefully paced, with a variety of practical activities too, and plenty of opportunities to ask questions and contribute to discussions. Richard Brook brings a wealth of experience to the training, and I appreciated his relaxed and chatty style. Thank you also for all the course resources too – the hand outs and additional resources are so useful. I feel much more confident and inspired as a result of completing this course, and would strongly recommend it to anyone who works with teenagers.
A very interesting course. I like the underpinning theory behind this approach. Richard explained things well and provided plenty of useful tips and Arlene provided an excellent list of books and resources for further learning. I thought it was a good idea to have a tutor and a host for the online session. The host complemented Richard’s teaching and proved invaluable when there were some minor technical problems. This was the first time I have taken a course by HG and it certainly won’t be the last
Since I haven’t worked with teenagers yet, this course helped rehearse what to expect, not only because of the course contents, but by the questions and remarks of my fellow classmates. Richard Brook kept us engaged and thinking, and the time flew by. Our facilitator Arlene did a great job of adding any books or authors that were mentioned into the zoom chatbox… so I am very exited to receive that plethora of information as well.
Very informative, good use of slides, excellent tutor.
I am an experience Educational Psychologist who is returning to school based work following 20 plus years as an expert witness. I was looking for a course which would serve as a significant refresher and have the benefit of introducing new approaches, so the course was a perfect fit for me. I appreciate Arlene in the background and the easy and relaxed approach of Richard Brook. The lack of ‘psychobabble’ was a blessed relief!
Richard is a great teacher and embodies the attitude and mannerisms of someone who works well with young people.
Another incredibly helpful and insightful course! I’ve been attending HG seminars for over 20 years now and this one has to be one of the best. Richard’s expertise is second to none and I loved his easy-going approach. I made loads of notes of methods and techniques I can start using with clients right away. And with teenage mental health issues on the increase I believe this course is essential for anyone who works with ‘troubled and troublesome teens’. A most excellent day. Thank you!
A very thoughtful presentation with plenty of time to practice and embed the learning from the points made. It was engaging and informative no matter whether new to Human Givens ideas or experienced
How to Help Troubled and Troublesome Teenagers is a well organised and professionally presented inter-active workshop that is beneficial to both newcomers to this topic as well as seasoned veterans of teen counselling. The opportunities to practice the techniques with each other as the class progresses through the day thoroughly grounds the information for future use. I found the unit on how to communicate with teenagers particularly helpful. I highly recommend this class.
Enjoyable, reassuring and practical, I found this course to be a great addition to my ongoing training and development, exploring the topic of how we best help young persons who come to therapy for help. Richard Brook has such a broad range of experience with young people which he generously shared from, we could have kept asking questions for hours!
I loved it. I was WAY out of my depth in terms of others’ expertise but I felt ‘held’ and in the right place for my pursuit into working with teens. The forum is welcoming, insightful, explorative and I came away being so inspired I had to warn my partner that I would be rabbiting on about it for hours that evening! I learnt a lot as well as learning I had already acquired tools that would be useful and that was really empowering. The tutor was fantastic and always open to questions and alternative viewpoints and I think this course could be applicable to many walks of life where people are still ‘developing’, haven’t been parented well and have trauma that stalls them. Thank you so much x
Very good although I was hoping for detail and quite a substantial amount of, around technology and in particular screen use; how both of these impact on the mental health of teenagers. This is due to it being such an ongoing and ever increasing issue within families And society isn’t going anywhere!..I think it’s so relevant; and plays such a significant part to their life/human givens and overall mental health – I was surprised it wasn’t a feature or even included within the course content. Also neurodiversity within teens needed content – another growing trend being found amongst teens of late.?..and def worth tying in
Richard is very personable and knowledgeable – he has lots of deep experience to draw on and I really enjoyed and valued his anecdotes. I found the balance of theory and group exploration vis-a-vis practical work (in breakout rooms) suboptimal. The pace of the theory and large group exploration was a little slow and felt a bit ‘ploddy’ in parts. This, coupled with a decline in energy from the group as the day progressed made it hard for me to maintain motivation and concentration in the afternoon (I suspect that being on a Human Givens in-person class/course the day before probably didn’t help – I think I hit my wall of learning, so I take responsibility for booking the two courses back to back).
I also found the role playing of one of us being an adolescent a bit contrite and forced. I don’t know if there is an alternative or another way around it, though.
An informative and enjoyable course. Full of useful content and practical advice that will enhance my practice. The course was well presented with a good balance of teaching, discussion and exercises.
It was a really informative day and I took a lot away from it that I will be able to use in my day to day practice with children and young people. Overall, I enjoyed the topics that we covered and I’m really pleased that I took the course. The delivery was great and it was obvious that it came from a place of knowledge and personal experiences.
Lots of information and well presented. Personally I’d liked to have had more examples of working with teenagers. Some videos of clients receiving therapy would be best. Apart from that it was a very good course.
Great practical ideas of working with teenagers.
I appreciated so many little tips to help with relating to teens
Really enjoyed the on-line course. It helps me to understand how a teenager’s mind works, and how to explore their mind more effectively. I am sure I will work more effectively with the teenager at my work, even at home as a parent. I found it really significant, the comparison of our own adolescent lives to the adult lives today. Thank you very much – I hope I can participate in more workshops in the future.
The one day course felt like a potted wealth of experience from a truly caring and intelligent person. I am now far more hopeful of being able to reach and offer effective help to the troubled teens that I work with.
The course was very informative and practical. The presenter was highly professional and experienced in the topic of material. I found it practical and engaging.
The course was informative and practical. I will definitely use many of the strategies discussed.
Full of great insights into the troubled teenager mind. Fantastic tips and great ways of working with what I feel is a rather scary set of people. Now I feel more empowered.
Incredibly informative course with practical skills on how to help young people thrive.
I found this course very informative, especially as I am just branching out into this part of my profession. I had total confidence in everything Richard told us as he has been involved with adolescents for many years. Nobody can tell it quite like someone with experience. I enjoyed meeting others taking the course and sharing each other’s thoughts and views. It was also my first experience of Human Givens and feel I might be interested in some of the other courses they provide.
The course was very enjoyable and interactive, and the trainer was clearly very skilled and experienced working with teenagers. The resources provided were excellent and I am really pleased I attended. Useful skills in communicating with young people, both as a professional and as a parent. Thank you so much.
I found this course really useful. Richard Brook gave us useful and up-to-date information on adolescent behaviour. He has a great presentation style (very relevant to working with young people) and led a wonderfully participatory workshop that provided real experience to draw on when working with young people.
I really enjoyed the course – it was easy to understand and plenty of useful information was included and we were able to share tips and discuss skills with others in the breakout rooms.
Great course and resources, really well explained and practical to aid work with young people in a way which is engaging.
The course was very helpful, lots of useful tips. Liked the realness of the presenter, being able to explore tried and tested techniques and the work in breakout rooms was really interesting to learn from peers.
A most enjoyable course with plenty of practise in breakout rooms.
Extremely useful CPD. Lots of practical strategies that can be applied easily. Looking forward to putting them into practice with my students.
I felt the day was largely practical and this is something I particularly enjoy as a practitioner. The structure of the content on the day was excellent and Richard presented in a relaxed manner with his own experience of working with teenagers shining through. I would thoroughly recommend the course to anyone working alongside troubled youngsters.
Richard’s real life experience was evident throughout the course and made the learning easy to apply.
Great course for those looking to extend their knowledge in working with troubled teens. Some useful resources to help you build rapport and communicate better with young people. I also liked the links that gave you for research and I loved the anxiety card idea. I have already purchased mine and they’re fantastic.
Richard is so engaging and puts you at ease. He is a mine of information about adolescents and I thoroughly enjoyed this day.
I thoroughly enjoyed this informative course with Richard. Learning some new viewpoints and being reminded of old. A day well spent.
I really enjoyed this course today. It was delivered in an informal but well structured way, with plenty of opportunity to raise questions and get answers. Thank you – a great, friendly course.
Very good information – this was a bit of a refresher for me as I work with Human Givens emotional needs a lot with clients as this approach really resonates with me and is hugely successful for clients of all ages. I was perhaps after some specific support/something new/further ideas due to more teens coming through my private practice with various issues, but not so much the deeply troubled/outwardly rebellious behavioural issues that you see in a school setting. It was good to have some group work but I would have perhaps appreciated less of that and seeing some of those tasks modelled by the trainer instead to gain maximum benefit. I am surprised at my own slight disapointment and can’t totally put my finger on it!
The course content was very thorough but it was Richard’s examples from his working experience that really helped underpin this. A very helpful course which also provided a useful further reading reference list.
Richard Brooks is one of the best teachers I have seen in HGC. He combines a heartfelt drive for the work with huge experience and sound knowledge. What’s more, the workshop included plenty of relevant and fun exercises to make the contents come alive. I could be in his class for a week!
Really useful information on the slight changes required to the HG approach to ensure you can work effectively with troubled and troublesome teenagers. Sound background to why teenagers do what they do, and how best to help them without getting shut down or shut out! Impressed by the on-line presentation and great to still have the opportunity to discuss and complete activities with other attendees.
A great insight into the different ways to help teenagers to overcome anxiety and depression. Richard gave practical approaches to problem solving. It was excellent training – thank you.
Thorough, informative, insightful and hugely practical. Richard Brook’s teaching is clearly informed by many years of direct experience working with troubled teens, and his training is all the richer for it.
The course was superb, expertly delivered and with some very useful, practical exercises that embedded the learning.
This course provided me with some different perspectives and tools to use when working with teenagers. It was particularly interesting to think about how teenagers might find it difficult to articulate what they are experiencing, and I loved the metaphor of fixing a rusty tap and allowing the water to run until it goes clear for not jumping on the first thing that’s said.
I absolutely loved the course. So much information and lots of essential tools were provided. Many courses I have done have been ‘light’ on practical information, but heavy on ‘waffle’ – this was the exact opposite. I will definitely be signing up for another Human Givens course to add to my toolbox.
I enjoyed the live examples, the tutor was experienced and built rapport with us all very quickly. A well organised and presented training day, and I left feeling more confident about how to – and importantly, how NOT to – communicate with teenagers. I left with a good and useful toolkit.
Richard was very easy to engage with, even on-line. He had a wonderful sense of humour and clearly has a wealth of knowledge and experience of working with teenagers in a number of different capacities. The slides were thorough and well presented, and so many brilliant ideas were presented by the whole group of attendees as well. I was very much looking forward to attending this course, and exceeded my expectations.
A clear and useful day of information when working alongside teenagers. Thank you Richard
An interesting and engaging workshop with lots of interactive learning at a good pace. Insightful and informative.
The course ran smoothly and was well and clearly presented with plentiful resources signposted in the chat which was helpful. As someone who is not familiar with the HG approach, I was curious about what differentiated it, and was somewhat clearer after the course. The content was interesting and brought to life by anecdotes and examples that were thought-provoking. The facilitator was clearly very well experienced, both at working with young people in a variety of settings and in teaching. There were some gems that stuck with me, and some concepts that will be useful in my practise. For a one day workshop there was a good amount of ground covered. I would have liked to have had some more teaching, discussion and information about ways of working with what I am currently seeing young people facing; many with fear about society and climate change, much confusion around sexual orientation and gender and (following on from Covid) uncertainty, instability and social anxiety. All in all, although I was perhaps hoping to look at those issues in relation to young people, I thought the course was worth doing, but I probably won’t do any more trainings with HG. My approach is very embodied and experiential, anchoring in good experiences. Sessions are co-created by the client, the horses and myself, so flexibility and having plenty of tools in my tool box are key. I do include a fair amount of psycho education and so having different models to draw from is always useful, which is why I attended the course with an organisation I don’t know much about. I appreciated the structure and pace of the course, and I felt there was a really generosity – to share information and experience.
This was so very helpful as I’m working more with young people more than ever. Richard was amazing. Thank you HG.
This was an extremely informative course, packed with relevant information and practical, useful advice.
Lots of information and strategies for dealing with obvious troublesome behaviour in teenagers. However, there was no focus on the quiet, withdrawn teenager who is troubled but never rises to the attention of the police or other services. In particular, under-achieving girls who withdraw from school and all social life. These girls and boys are allowed to slip through the net of many intervention services because there is no outwardly aggressive behaviour.
Very interesting information presented by Richard emphasising the HG approach as well as his invaluable experience in the field of working with teens.
Lots of good insights into working with troublesome teens.
Great course! Full of very useful practical tips. Helped me to understand teenagers better.
Being online was convenient and surprisingly engaging. I got to know lots of people in the group thanks to the variety of ways we all were encouraged to interact. The breakout rooms worked really well and the training team ran the tech very smoothly. Really impressed. I will definitely do more HG training online.
Very insightful course.. would recommend!
Really useful and thought provoking day with lots of practical advice and insight of real situations/examples.
This was a thoroughly enjoyable course. Richard’s easy way of teaching made the day fly by but I also came away with lots of tools to use with my students.
I came away with lots of new knowledge and feeling like everything made sense. The use of theory and being able to break out in groups and put this into practice, really helped. I found Richard to be very engaging and he explained everything very well. I would certainly recommend as I have found that the course has put a few ‘jigsaw’ pieces together for me in being able to develop material for teenagers.
Very useful workshop for understanding how HG psychology can be used with teens. It was full of very helpful practical techniques and tools. Workshop participants were able to draw from Richard’s huge knowledge and experience – a sort of group mentoring approach that encouraged us to gleam as much as possible from his brain that inspired and informed solution based interventions across different types of work with teens.
An enlightening and inspirational course.
This was a great course giving brilliant insight into how to better support troubled teenagers. The content was useful, practical and feels possible.
Nice information gently given to be accessible to a wide range of audiences.
Really useful for anyone working with challenging teens. Richard has a wealth of knowledge and experience with this age group and I have gained some great insights and new ideas to put into practice – thank you!
I learnt so much today about how to effectively engage with teenagers (and others). Looking forward to using these techniques.
Wonderful wise lecturer, well rounded course with exercises which enabled us to ‘meet’ others on the course. Well presented and explained. The only criticism would be the necessity of the ‘Running with Bulls’ film.
Richard Brooks was very useful as he not only presented useful facts but matched them up with examples of how he had tackled using the facts with teenagers with behavioural difficulties. The models used are so much better than the old ABC approach, which I realise is now quite outdated. Thank you again.
It was a last minute decision to do this course – but I am delighted I did as it was excellent!
So much of what was said was relevant to my day-to-day experiences. I’m glad I came.
A useful overview of the human givens philosophy and an introduction to some of the tools that can be used when working with teenagers. The section on RIGAAR and the activity was particularly useful and insightful.
Some really useful strategies for working with young people. Very relevant to current profession.
Fantastic day. Learned a lot in a very relaxed and open atmosphere. Thank you.
Very relevant to my work – touched on many situations I face daily
The whole day was very interesting and useful. I particularly enjoyed the anecdotes, which made the theories easier to understand.
Excellent throughout and highly relevant to my work. Today has enabled me to be more imaginative and creative with engaging young people.
As a practitioner in secondary schools, the handouts and concepts are very constructive for promoting understanding in the minds of school colleagues who can unwittingly escalate problems. I thought it worked well for me – an excellent mix of information and practical activities all imbued with the HG approach.
I feel much better equipped to work with young people now.
The practical skills, exercises and presentation were all excellent.
Enlightening and informative! A thoroughly worthwhile day.
I have gained loads from today – too much to write down! Excellent mix of practical exercises and listening. Richard is very engaging and interesting – wish I’d met someone like him when I was a teenager.
Very practical, useful advice and a new approach to bringing about behavioural change.