Dear Mental Health / Social Services Professionals,

Below are selected resources about children's interest in fire, fireplay and firesetting by children and youth, and resources for assessment and diagnosis. Feel free to browse all of the resources that we have found to be useful in the development of our programs by clicking here. Our Research Studies page includes references and brief descriptions of the research studies we cite most frequently in our materials and training, concerning unintentional injury, fire safety, and children and fire.

New Article! Counseling Children Who Play With Fire

Whether they happen in school or at home, intentionally or unintentionally, fires set by children are always cause for concern. Most school counselors will, at some point in their careers, be called on to work with a child who has started a fire or played with fire. Read more.

Juvenile Firesetting: A Community Guide to Prevention and Intervention

Fireproof Children/ Prevention First shares more than 25 years of research and hands-on experience by fire investigators and child development experts. Includes chapters especially for mental health professionals, and nuts and bolts techniques for building community coalitions.

This book is the mental health professional's best source for understanding juvenile firesetting and crafting office-based interventions for young patients and their families.
Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

Preview the Table of Contents

Read testimonials

"Interventions in Fire-lighting"

A chapter by Daryl L. Sharp, Robert E. Cole, Carolyn E. Kourofsky, and Susan W. Blaakman in Practical Interventions for Young People at Risk, edited by Kathryn Geldard, to be published in July 2009.

Order the book from Sage Publications.

Handbook on Firesetting in Children and Youth, David Kolko http://www.pitt.edu/~kolko/

This multidisciplinary handbook is a comprehensive source of information on all topics relating to children who set fires. For more information about David Kolko’s research and to order this book visit his website.

Handbook of Prescriptive Treatment for Children and Adolescents, Ammerman, R., Hersen, M. and Last, C. (Eds.) - "Firesetting" chapter

Order the complete book from: www.amazon.com

The "Firesetting" chapter by Cole, R. Grolnick, W. & Schwartzman, P., provides a description of the problem of childhood firesetting and presents an overview of assessment, diagnosis issues and strategies.

SOS FIRES http://sosfires.com

SOS Fires’ Juvenile Firesetting Intervention Resource Site offers resources for parents and professionals of all disciplines including articles of interest to those working with juvenile firesetting behavior, a parent/teacher resources page, contact information for juvenile firesetting programs across the country and a resource exchange page allowing the reader to ask questions, share experiences and learn from others.