Richard Bulkeley PhD

I was born in the island of Malta to English parents during the Second World War and returned to England in the last convoy to leave Malta which was heavily bombarded. I grew up in England and studied Philosophy and Psychology at Oxford University. I taught secondary school students in Ghana (West Africa) for three years, taught for three more years in England and trained as an educational psychologist. I worked as an educational psychologist for eight years and then transferred to a clinical psychology post. This meant that I worked in more depth with children, young people and families. I became interested in running groups with children and young people to help develop their social skill, that is to say their ability to live and work with others at home, at school and in the wider community. I found that young people who had been bullied often had difficulty in making friends because they had lost confidence. Others had difficulty making friends when they moved to a new area. I decided to do research on social skill difficulties experienced by young people, and found that some tended to be withdrawn and isolated whilst others tended to alienate others by insensitive behaviour. I learned that positive assertion was the the best strategy for young people to adopt to survive in the social world. Later in my career I worked in depth with autistic children and young people and found that social skill development was a key area of difficulty for them. In my book I have tried to describe some of the issues which may arise for children and young people in their journey towards adult social competence, and to give some idea of how they may be helped.