States the need for community-based, integrated services to meet the many needs of at-risk youth and their families. Discusses services integration, case management, parental involvement, tutoring, mentoring, fund-raising, and monitoring program outcomes.

In the child welfare system some youth do well in their lives, but far too many do not experience positive outcomes by the time they are leaving government services. The youth often feel marginalized and that they were not involved in decisions about their own lives, leaving them with a sense of hopelessness and helplessness. This book focuses on high-risk youth - whose struggles include neglect and abuse, alcohol and drug abuse, the risk of being exploited, mental health issues, and the inability to self-regulate and trust - a population of youth that government child welfare services and community agencies struggle to serve adequately. The focus has traditionally been on punishment-consequence interventions and demanding compliance, but experience and research shows they can be better served through relationship-based practice incorporating harm reduction principles, resiliency and strength-based approaches, community collaboration, and an understanding that these youth typically come from experiences of early trauma impacting their brain development and their ability to form attachments. This book provides an overview of the Get Connected practice framework and philosophy, and provides strategies for engaging and working with the most disconnected, challenging, and troubled youth in society.

This resource offers counseling strategies to promote adolescents' overlooked strengths and create healthy alternatives to problem behaviors such as bullying, drug use, violence, and promiscuity.

This text provides the conceptual and practical information on key issues and problems that students need to prepare effectively for work with at-risk youth. The authors describe and discuss the latest prevention and intervention techniques that will help future and current professionals perform their jobs successfully and improve the lives of young people at risk.

Abstract: This book provides information, techniques, and strategies for a wide range of helping professionals who work with youth at risk -- counselors, teachers, parents, administrators, social workers, and those involved in educating future helping professionals. Sample programs that have been effective are described along with data on causal factors and indepth looks at teen suicide, depression, drugs, eating disorders, gangs, dropping out of school, and special abuse.

By focusing attention on what is right with youth rather than what is wrong with them, the strengths-based approach to intervening with youth avoids negative outcomes commonly associated with deficit- or problem-based interventions. This book provides an accessible outline of the strengths-based approach and details 41 interventions across several strengths domains.Practitioners in school, clinical, and community settings will find the book's numerous case examples, practical suggestions, and reproducible forms and handouts invaluable in the provision of day-to-day youth services.