Pesky gNATs

Pesky gNATs began as a simple homemade workbook written by Prof Gary O’Reilly for some of the young people he met in his clinical practice. The workbook is now available in English (UK), English (USA), Spanish, Arabic, Slovakian, Slovenian, Polish and German. 

You can request the workbook by emailing Gary at gary.e.oreilly@ucd.ie stating your mental health qualification and he will email it to you by return. He’s only human though, so give him a chance to reply!

The workbook is a collection of worksheets to help children and young teenagers develop skills to help them manage a wide range of emotional and behavioural problems.  They are intended for use by psychologists, social workers, child care workers, child psychiatrists and other mental health professionals to assist them in their routine clinical practice.

The basic idea in creating the workbook was to develop and provide a freely available resource for clinical work that (a) facilitates the discussion of life experiences, self-perception, family relationships and (b) supports skill development in areas such as expressing how you feel, recognising and changing distorted thinking, managing anger, problem solving, planning good times, and relaxation.  The workbook can be applied to a range of different problems that children present with in clinical settings  In using it with young people, workers can dip in and out selecting the specific parts that are relevant for their clients.  Each time professionals wish to use the materials they can simply print out a good quality fresh copy of the relevant worksheets.