Welcome to the Reaching Teens community. We are a group of youth-serving professionals and community members who care for and about young people, and who are willing to be intentional about being the kind of adults who will support all youth to thrive.

Because you entered the electronic version of Reaching Teens through the pathway specific for your practice setting, you will receive the following tailored materials.

• An introduction to why Reaching Teens is particularly relevant in your setting.
• Suggested chapters that will be most helpful to you.
• Group learning and discussion/personal reflections cases written for the youth you interact with in your setting.

The pathway designed for your setting does not exclude you from any content. Rather, it gives you the option of streamlining your experience.  We suggest that in addition to taking advantage of the pathway, you become familiar with the other options of navigating Reaching Teens. Chapter 10 offers a detailed description, but Navigating Reaching Teens provides a good summary.

[Please note that if you view a chapter from the below access points, you will get the general audience materials, whereas if it has been selected in your setting-specific pathway and you access it from that pathway, you may have tailored materials.]

Getting Oriented to the Toolkit

You may find it useful to first have an overview of key philosophical and practice points. Once you “own” these, you’ll get more out of every other chapter.

We recommend the following chapters to get started:

• “Reaching Teens: Preparing You to Become the Adult Young People Need in Their Lives” (Chapter 1)
• “Reframing Adolescence: Holding Youth to High Expectations and Refuting Undermining Portrayals” (Chapter 6)
• “Understanding and Supporting Healthy Adolescent Development” (Chapter 13)
• “The Language of Resilience” (Chapter 27)
• “Trauma Sensitive Practice: Working with Youth Who Have Faced Adverse Childhood (or Adolescent) Experiences” (Chapter 37)
• “Reframing Youth Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization” (Chapter 38)
• “Focusing and Building on Existing Strengths: A Strategy to Overcome Risks and to Prepare Adolescents to Be Their Best Selves” (Chapter 44)
• “Healer, Heal Thyself: Self-care for the Caregiver” (Chapter 90)

Orienting New Staff

Professional development (PD) sessions are generally offered in an annual or biannual cycle. This means that staff hired on an ongoing basis may not be exposed to key information until the next time the topic is offered. This leaves them unprepared to join your organizational culture, and more importantly could lead to their making unnecessary errors in serving youth. In addition, many staff may be coming from programs that do not use a strength-based perspective and will need extra support to shift to this approach.

You may assign these chapters to orient new staff prior to their contact with youth:

• “Reaching Teens: Preparing You to Become the Adult Young People Need in Their Lives” (Chapter 1)
• “Boundaries” (Chapter 24)
• “De-escalation and Crisis Management When a Youth Is Acting Out” (Chapter 34)
• “Trauma Sensitive Practice: Working with Youth Who Have Faced Adverse Childhood (or Adolescent) Experiences” (Chapter 37)
• “Focusing and Building on Existing Strengths: A Strategy to Overcome Risks and to Prepare Adolescents to Be Their Best Selves” (Chapter 44)
• “Helping Youth Overcome Shame and Stigma (and Doing Our Best to Not Be a Part of the Problem)” (Chapter 49)
• If new staff does not a youth-development background:
  • “Understanding and Supporting Healthy Adolescent Development” (Chapter 13)

Familiarizing Yourself with All 95 Chapters Available

You can see the overall Table of Contents here. 

If you want to see a brief overview of what each chapter contains, the easiest way to view that is by looking at the introduction page to each of the 11 Reaching Teens sections. The introduction page offers a brief description of each chapter in the section. Click to see the chapters within each section.

• Section 1 (Chapters 1–6): Orientation to a Strength Based Approach sets the philosophical tone and rationale for strength-based, trauma-sensitive communication.
• Section 2 (Chapters 7–12): Orientation to Using Reaching Teens as a Toolkit offers strategies to get the most out of this toolkit in your personal practice or professional setting.
• Section 3 (Chapters 13–21): Understanding Adolescents and Their World prepares you to consider the developmental milieu and environmental contexts that affect teens.
• Section 4 (Chapters 22–25): Connecting with Adolescents and Their Families offers strategies to build trustworthy and effective relationships.
• Section 5 (Chapters 26–35): Communicating with Adolescents offers essential strategies and approaches to reach youth and facilitate behavioral change.
• Section 6 (Chapters 36–43): Working with Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization focuses on applying trauma-sensitive practices.
• Section 7 (Chapters 44–51): Empowering Adolescents to Build on their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors offers specific strategies that use a shared decision-making model to empower youth to make wiser decisions and healthier choices.
• Section 8 (Chapters 52–58): Supporting Effective Parenting considers how we as youth-serving professionals can support parents to most effectively monitor and guide their children.
• Section 9 (Chapters 59–79): Mental, Emotional. And Behavioral Health includes strategies to help youth navigate a variety of specific psychosocial and environmental challenges.
• Section 10 (Chapters 80–89): Serving Young People Deserving of Focused Attention addresses the specific needs of unique populations.
• Section 11 (Chapters 90–95): Caring for the Caregivers recognizes that this work is emotionally challenging, sometimes exhausting and demoralizing, and that unless we care for ourselves with the same degree of commitment with which we care for others, our capacity to serve over a lifetime will be diminished.

Broader Topics and Overarching Themes

Whether you use Reaching Teens to develop professional development sessions or are navigating it on your own, you will likely want to teach (or learn) overarching themes or broader topics. In some cases, a single chapter will suffice for a topic (e.g., depression). In most cases, however, you’ll consider topics like “How to remain calm amidst chaos,” or “How to transform to trauma-sensitive practices.” In these cases, you’ll want to draw key elements from a group of chapters.

Below are some topics we know based on feedback and experience that the Reaching Teens community have been interested in. Others may be added as we gain feedback from the second edition. Click here to see the variety of chapters that intersect to support each topic. You’ll notice that many key chapters exist in more than one unit. This allows for reinforcement of critical concepts.

• Transforming to a Strength-Based Approach
• Helping Communities and Youth-Serving Professionals See Youth Through a Strength-Based Lens
• Reframing Youth: Addressing and Refuting an Undermining Cultural Narrative About Youth
• Honoring Diversity and Practicing Cultural Humility
• The Basics of Effective Communication With Youth
• Adolescent Development 101
• Adolescent Resilience 101
• Instituting Trauma-Sensitive Practices
• Helping Young People Learn Self-regulation Both to Calm Their Minds and to Improve Their Behavior
• Stress Management
• Building a Sense of Control Within Youth
• Maintaining Your Cool Amidst Chaos So You Can Better Co-regulate With Youth and Settle Their Behaviors
• Supporting Mental, Emotional, and Behavioral Health
• Meeting the Needs of Youth Who Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, or Queer/Questioning
• Creating Effective Professional Boundaries
• Preventing Professional Burnout
• Self-care for Youth-Serving Professionals

Section 2: Orientation to Using Reaching Teens as A Toolkit

• “Ensuring Our Environments, Practices, and Procedures Align With Strength-Based Practices” (Chapter 11) suggests a reflective process that carefully considers whether current setting-specific realities will support or undermine strength-based practices.

Section 4: Connecting with Adolescents and their Families

• “Creating Adolescent-Friendly Spaces and Services” (Chapter 22) describes how we can create engaging, enriching environments that are respectful to and welcoming to teens.
• “Setting the Stage for a Trustworthy Relationship” (Chapter 23) offers a strategy to initially address some of the major issues teens and families consider as they extend their trust to you.

Section 5: Communicating With Adolescents

• “The SSHADESS Screen: A Strength-Based Psychosocial Assessment” (Chapter 32) is a verbal behavioral screen that starts by contextualizing risk within a broad initial understanding of the young person’s strengths.

Section 7: Empowering Adolescents to Build on Their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors

• “Focusing and Building on Existing Strengths: A Strategy to Overcome Risks and to Prepare Adolescents to Be Their Best Selves” (Chapter 44). This chapter is about listening intensely for behaviorally operational strengths and leveraging those strengths to support a person to move beyond undermining behaviors. We see people as they deserve to be seen, so they can see themselves as they deserve to be seen. This is a critical inflection point for people who have a longstanding history of received undermining assessments.
• “Motivational Interviewing” (Chapter 46) is a technique that has been shown to support positive behavioral outcomes and it is designed precisely to assure that people have control over what actions they choose to take and the pace of those actions.
• “Helping Adolescents Own their Solutions: Talking with Youth, Not at Them” (Chapter 48) focuses entirely on harnessing youth wisdom to help them reach healthier conclusions and develop their decision-making capacities.

Section 3: Understanding Adolescents and Their World

• “The Teen Brain” (Chapter 15) tells us about the rapidly developing adolescent brain. An understanding of the teen brain enables us to better understand adolescents’ emotions, thinking patterns, and behaviors. It also prepares us to more effectively communicate with young people.
• Female sexuality is covered in “Sex(uality) Happens: Fostering Healthy, Positive (Female) Sexuality” (Chapter 17). It covers the key developmental adolescent task of developing a healthy sexuality. It simultaneously addresses avoiding perilous risk behaviors sometimes associated with sexual awakening.
• “Male Sexuality” is addressed in Chapter 18. It covers the key developmental adolescent task of developing a healthy sexuality. It simultaneously addresses avoiding perilous risk behaviors sometimes associated with sexual awakening.

Section 4: Connecting with Adolescents and their Families

• “Boundaries” (Chapter 24) is a critically important chapter in a body of work that states “unconditional love and absolute respect” are key to reaching youth. We must not be afraid of the word “love,” but we must be very clear about what it means and must practice love with boundaries both to be protective of our own emotions and to prevent youth from becoming reliant on us in a way that could interfere with their own autonomy. This chapter is a cornerstone of this work and should be continually reflected upon as part of your organizational culture and individual practice, Boundaries are what allow us to serve over a lifetime while maintaining our personal lives. They are not what separate us from the youth we serve, they are what allow us to draw nearer.

Section 5: Communicating With Adolescents

• “Communicating with Adolescents 101” (Chapter 26) offers a brief overview of the basics of communication.
• “The Language of Resilience” (Chapter 27) offers examples of how we support versus undermine resilience with our words.
• “Examining Our Unconscious Biases” (Chapter 29) looks at thinking patterns and assumptions we may have that can interfere with our ability to objectively draw the most appropriate conclusions, and even guide people towards their most positive futures.
• “Healing Centered Engagement: Fostering Connections Rather Than Forcing Disclosures” (Chapter 31) underscores that our goal is to form relationships, not to gain information. This is key to creating the safe, secure, and sustained relationships that heal youth.
• “Strength-Based Interviewing: The Circle of Courage” (Chapter 33) is an interview technique that elicits and reinforces existing strengths by focusing on 4 assets—belonging, mastery, independence, and generosity. It allows the interviewer to also have a focused discussion on building strengths in those areas that need further development.
• “Delivering Bad News to Adolescents” (Chapter 35) acknowledges our own internal struggles with being the bearer of difficult news and offers approaches to conveying information in a supportive manner.

Section 6 : Working With Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization

• “Radical Calmness” (Chapter 41) discusses the importance and approaches to remaining calm even in the face of challenging youth behavior. Calm begets calm, reinforces felt-safety, and therefore lowers hyperarousal and the need for hypervigilance. It is key to co-regulation.

Section 7: Empowering Adolescents to Build on Their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors

• “Stress Management and Coping: Powerful Strategies to Take Control Over One’s Life” (Chapter 50) will allow you to move beyond telling youth what not to do, and instead will prepare you to suggest positive coping strategies that also alleviate stress. The comprehensive coping strategy presented will aid youth to choose healthy means to deal with discomfort rather than reaching for potentially dangerous quick fixes.

Section 8: Supporting Effective Parenting

• “Preparing Parents for Their Children’s Adolescence” (Chapter 53) suggests that looking forward to adolescence with a sense of dread will create a self-fulfilling downward spiral. We must celebrate this time of inspirational development. It also outlines a strategy that will help parents learn to honor adolescents’ growing independence and, therefore, hopefully prevent part of the rebellion sometimes associated with the teen years.
• “Promoting Balanced Parenting: Warmth, Clear Boundaries, and Effective Monitoring” (Chapter 54) will help you guide parents toward a parenting style that has been demonstrated to be associated with greater academic success, higher levels of emotional health, and lower risk among a wide spectrum of behaviors.

Section 9: Mental, Emotional. And Behavioral Health

• “Reaching Treatment: An Overview of Mental Health Treatment” (Chapter 61) offers a brief explanation of different approaches to mental health treatment, enabling you to better understand the services you might suggest a young person should access. Further, it suggests strength-based language that will better position you to refer the teen to appropriate services while avoiding shame or stigma in the process.
• These chapters titles suffice as explanation for their content:
  • “Depression” (Chapter 62)
  • “Anxiety” (Chapter 63)
  • “Somatic Symptoms and Related Disorders” (Chapter 64)

Section 11: Caring for the Caregiver

• “Healer, Heal Thyself: Self-care for the Caregiver” (Chapter 90), builds the case for the importance of caring for yourself and offers concrete strategies to do so.

Section 1: Orientation to a Strength Based Approach

• “Reframing Adolescence: Holding Youth to High Expectations and Refuting Undermining Portrayals” (Chapter 6) discusses the myths and misperceptions about adolescents that generate an undermining cultural narrative. This false storyline harms teens’ self-perceptions and undermines adult-youth engagement. If young people are falsely seen as inherently risky or irrational, adults will believe they have little influence. If young people are seen as rejecting adult guidance, or uniformly resentful of parental involvement, we will pull away precisely when we should be drawing nearer.

Section 5: Communicating With Adolescents

• “Body Language” (Chapter 30) describes how we can reinforce or undermine our connection with youth through nonverbal communication. In fact, our words represent the smaller fraction of what we convey to others. People skilled in the use of body language can better engage and empower people, as well as diffuse tension.

Section 6: Working With Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization

• “The Impact of Trauma on Development and Well-Being” (Chapter 36) offers the scientific grounding on what childhood trauma does to the body, brain, and behavior.
• “Trauma-Sensitive Practice: Working With Youth Who Have Faced Adverse Childhood (or Adolescent) Experiences” (Chapter 37) provides a detailed summary of the Reaching Teens Trauma-Sensitive Model and contextualizes it in the existing trauma-informed literature.
• “Reframing Youth Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization” (Chapter 38) covers the importance of avoiding labels and understanding past traumatic experiences as the origins of current behavior. It goes a step further by offering strategies in recognizing, elevating, and reinforcing the strengths of youth who have endured adversities.
• “The Traumatic Impact of Racism and Discrimination on Young People and How to Talk About It” (Chapter 42) discusses the life course impact of chronic stressors such as racial discrimination. It prepares professionals to have authentic discussions with youth about these undermining forces.

Section 7: Empowering Adolescents to Build on Their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors

• “Health Realization—Accessing a Higher State of Mind No Matter What” (Chapter 47) assumes that humans have a natural predisposition to be healthy, and that professionals can be more effective when we assume the role of facilitating youth back to that state of equilibrium.
• Strategies are offered in “Helping Youth Overcome Shame and Stigma (and Doing Our Best to Not Be a Part of the Problem)” (Chapter 49) for guiding youth to overcome some of the key barriers that may prevent them from seeking needed support.
• “Mindfulness Practice for Resilience and Managing Stress and Pain” (Chapter 51) helps youth live fully in the moment while forgetting the past and not worrying about the future. It relieves stress and allows focused thinking.

Section 8: Supporting Effective Parenting

• “Delivering Upsetting News to Parents: Recognizing Their Strengths First” (Chapter 55) offers a strategy to engage parents so they can support their children to navigate through challenges. It focuses on doing so without shame or stigma, and while recognizing the parents’ strengths and their critical role in their teen being able to move forward.

Section 10: Serving Young People Deserving of Focused Attention

These chapters titles suffice as explanation for their content.

• “Teens With Chronic Illness and Special Health Care Needs: A Person-Centered Approach to Communication” (Chapter 80)
• “Transitioning From Pediatric to Adult Services” (Chapter 81)

Section 11: Caring for the Caregivers

• “Have I Really Made a Difference? Trusting That Our Presence Matters” (Chapter 95) reminds us that although we sometimes wonder if we have made a difference, we need to trust that our guidance can have a lasting effect—even after our visits are a distant memory. Our knowledge that we are planting seeds restores us on a daily basis.

These chapters titles suffice as explanation for their content.

Section 6: Working with Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization

• “Working with Youth Who Have Experienced Sexual Trauma” (Chapter 43)

Section 9: Mental, Emotional. And Behavioral Health

• “The Role of Lifestyle in Mental Health Promotion” (Chapter 59)
• “Finding Resilience in Sports and Physically Active Recreation” (Chapter 60)
• “Grief” (Chapter 65)
• “Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Adolescents” (Chapter 66)
• “Learning Differences” (Chapter 67)
• “Perfectionism” (Chapter 68)
• “Eating Disorders” (Chapter 69)
• “Adolescents and Substance Use” (Chapter 70)
• “Adolescents and Opioid Use” (Chapter 71)
• “Teen Pregnancy and Parenting” (Chapter 72)
• “Teen Driving” (Chapter 73)
• “Managing Electronic Media Use in the Lives of Adolescents” (Chapter 74)
• “Helping Teens Cope With Divorce” (Chapter 75)
• “Bullying” (Chapter 76)
• “Unhealthy Relationships” (Chapter 77)
• “Emotional, Physical, and Sexual Abuse” (Chapter 78)
• “Youth Violence” (Chapter 79)

Section 10: Serving Young People Deserving of Focused Attention

• “Youth Who Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Queer/Questioning” (Chapter 82)
• “Serving Youth Who Are Transgender and Gender Diverse” (Chapter 83)
• “Reaching Youth Who Are Immigrants” (Chapter 84)
• “America’s Children: The Unique Needs and Culture of Youth Affiliated With the Military” (Chapter 85)
• “Supporting Youth in Foster Care to Engage in Services and Supports” (Chapter 86)
• “Working With Youth Involved With Juvenile Justice” (Chapter 87)
• “Youth Living With HIV” (Chapter 88)
• “Serving Youth Who Are Experiencing Homelessness or Are Unstably Housed” (Chapter 89)

It may be likely that helping to manage young people behaviorally is your first priority, and is therefore a good place to start as you dive into Reaching Teens. The following pathway will support you to build your co-regulation skills while supporting young people to develop their self-regulation skills.

Two key points here:

1. Co-regulation is how we convey safety to young people. As children experience the turbulence of life, they look around to see if the flight attendants (you!) are still serving the snacks. In other words, your calm begets calm.
2. Self-regulation is a skill to be learned. It is not a character trait that someone possesses or lacks. Many young people learned these skills in a stable home and healthy school environment. Others have not. Furthermore, youth who have endured trauma have learned reactivity as a survival tool. Judging an inability to self-regulate is counterproductive. Understanding that it is your privilege both to convey felt-safety and to teach self-regulation is highly productive.

Below are chapters that will build your skills in these areas. You will note redundancy of chapters to some of those in previous sections.

Primary Chapters

• “Supporting Youth to Build Their Self-regulation Skills” (Chapter 39) discusses approaches to helping youth gain a sense of control and regulate their response to stressors.
• “Health Realization—Accessing a Higher State of Mind No Matter What” (Chapter 47) assumes that humans have a natural predisposition to be healthy, and that professionals can be more effective when we assume the role of facilitating youth back to that state of equilibrium.
• “Stress Management and Coping: Powerful Strategies to Take Control Over One’s Life” (Chapter 50) will allow you to move beyond telling youth what not to do, and instead will prepare you to suggest positive coping strategies that also alleviate stress. The comprehensive coping strategy presented will aid youth to choose healthy means to deal with discomfort rather than reaching for potentially dangerous quick fixes.
• “Mindfulness Practice for Resilience and Managing Stress and Pain” (Chapter 51) helps youth live fully in the moment while forgetting the past and not worrying about the future. It relieves stress and allows focused thinking.

Supportive Chapters

• “The Teen Brain” (Chapter 15) tells us about the rapidly developing adolescent brain. An understanding of the teen brain enables us to better understand adolescents’ emotions, thinking patterns, and behaviors. It also prepares us to more effectively communicate with young people.
• “Examining Our Unconscious Biases” (Chapter 29) looks at thinking patterns and assumptions we may have that can interfere with our ability to objectively draw the most appropriate conclusions, and even guide people towards their most positive futures.
• “Body Language” (Chapter 30) describes how we can reinforce or undermine our connection with youth through nonverbal communication. In fact, our words represent the smaller fraction of what we convey to others. People skilled in the use of body language can better engage and empower people, as well as diffuse tension.
• “Healing Centered Engagement: Fostering Connections Rather Than Forcing Disclosures” (Chapter 31) underscores that our goal is to form relationships, not to gain information. This is key to creating the safe, secure, and sustained relationships that heal youth.
• “De-escalation and Crisis Management When a Youth Is Acting Out” (Chapter 34) offers strategies to restore calm to a youth whose anxiety, anger, or frustration may be building.
• “Delivering Bad News to Adolescents” (Chapter 35) acknowledges our own internal struggles with being the bearer of difficult news and offers approaches to conveying information in a supportive manner.
• “The Power of Safe, Secure, Sustained Relationships in the Lives of Youth” (Chapter 40) reviews the role of consistent and caring relationships with adults as a stabilizing force in the lives of youth who have endured trauma.
• “Radical Calmness” (Chapter 41) discusses the importance and approaches to remaining calm even in the face of challenging youth behavior. Calm begets calm, reinforces felt-safety, and therefore lowers hyperarousal and the need for hypervigilance. It is key to co-regulation.
• “Restorative Practices: Addressing Problems by Using Strength-Based Rather Than Punitive Strategies” (Chapter 45) is about including rather than excluding youth. It allows us to hold young people accountable to being their best selves in a way that supports, rather than disrupts, our relationships with them.

Section 1: Orientation to a Strength Based Approach

• “Reaching Teens: Preparing You to Become the Kind of Adult Young People Need in Their Lives” (Chapter 1) presents the core philosophical principles that guide Reaching Teens. It makes the case for the imperative of integrating the lessons from three theoretical frameworks: positive youth development, resilience-building strategies, and trauma-sensitive practices.
• “The 7 Cs: An Interdisciplinary Model That Integrates Positive Youth Development, Resilience-Building Strategies, and Trauma-Sensitive Practices” (Chapter 2) will introduce a comprehensive model that captures the key ingredients youth need to thrive in good times and rise above adversity in challenging times.
• In “The Journey From Risk-Focused Attention to Strength-Based Care” (Chapter 3), both the history and rationale of a strength-based approach to youth are presented. Although it may seem intuitive that people will best feel empowered when we recognize their existing strengths, this premise was considered innovative at one time. Because we cared so deeply about the well-being of youth, we naturally focused on mitigating their risks. Now we understand that one of the most effective ways to address risk is to build on existing strengths.
• “How a Strength-Based Approach Affects Behavioral Change” (Chapter 4) will contextualize how many of the approaches suggested in Reaching Teens fit into an overall strategy to apply these frameworks and promote positive behavioral change in youth.

Section 1: Orientation to a Strength Based Approach

• “Youth Are Experts in Their Own Lives” (Chapter 5), covers how recognizing teens as the greatest experts on their own lives—one of the core principles of positive youth development—better positions adults to engage in a shared decision-making process with adolescents.
• "Reframing Adolescence: Holding Youth to High Expectations and Refuting Undermining Portrayals” (Chapter 6) discusses the myths and misperceptions about adolescents that generate an undermining cultural narrative. This false storyline harms teens’ self-perceptions and undermines adult-youth engagement. If young people are falsely seen as inherently risky or irrational, adults will believe they have little influence. If young people are seen as rejecting adult guidance, or uniformly resentful of parental involvement, we will pull away precisely when we should be drawing nearer.

Section 2: Orientation to Using Reaching Teens as A Toolkit

• “Reaching Adults So They Can Reach Teens” (Chapter 9) prepares users to teach adults. An understanding of how adults learn best can be the starting point of your interacting with other youth-serving professionals as you prepare them to join with you in initiatives to support the health and well-being of youth.
• “Ensuring Our Environments, Practices, and Procedures Align With Strength-Based Practices” (Chapter 11) suggests a reflective process that carefully considers whether current setting-specific realities will support or undermine strength-based practices.
• “Informed by the Evidence and Leading Practice: How Is Reaching Teens Research Informed?” (Chapter 12) provides guideposts for presenting the Reaching Teens Specifically this chapter will guide you how to communicate the science supporting this meaningful work.

Section 3: Understanding Adolescents and Their World

• “Understanding and Supporting Healthy Adolescent Development” (Chapter 13) offers a whirlwind tour of the social, cognitive, emotional, and moral development of youth, but focuses on those points that affect our ability to effectively interact with youth.  
• “The Teen Brain” (Chapter 15) tells us about the rapidly developing adolescent brain. An understanding of the teen brain enables us to better understand adolescents’ emotions, thinking patterns, and behaviors. It also prepares us to more effectively communicate with young people.
• Adolescents are social beings, and learning how to fit in with peers is a key development task. It is equally as important to know how to choose positive friendships and to know when not to fit in with peers. “Friendship and Peers”(Chapter 16) helps us better understand the social forces that affect youth.
• It is critical to realize that what adults think of as the “virtual world” vs the “real world” are one world for teens. It is this seamless environment in which they live that shapes their development. “The Virtual World of Adolescents” (Chapter 19) prepares us to better understand this relatively new environment for youth.
• Spirituality and religion are integral parts of the lives of many of the teens we serve. “Spirituality and Resilience in Adolescence: Connection, Purpose, and Love”(Chapter 20) discusses how a better understanding of these elements of young people’s lives can better prepare us to support them as they seek meaning and purpose.

Section 5: Communicating With Adolescents

• “Communicating with Adolescents 101” (Chapter 26) offers a brief overview of the basics of communication.
• “The Language of Resilience” (Chapter 27) offers examples of how we support versus undermine resilience with our words.
• “Body Language” (Chapter 30) describes how we can reinforce or undermine our connection with youth through nonverbal communication. In fact, our words represent the smaller fraction of what we convey to others. People skilled in the use of body language can better engage and empower people, as well as diffuse tension.

Section 6: Working With Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization

• “Supporting Youth to Build Their Self-Regulation Skills” (Chapter 39) discusses approaches to helping youth gain a sense of control and regulate their response to stressors.
• “Radical Calmness” (Chapter 41) discusses the importance and approaches to remaining calm even in the face of challenging youth behavior. Calm begets calm, reinforces felt-safety, and therefore lowers hyperarousal and the need for hypervigilance. It is key to co-regulation.

Section 7: Empowering Adolescents to Build on Their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors

• “Focusing and Building on Existing Strengths: A Strategy to Overcome Risks and to Prepare Adolescents to Be Their Best Selves” (Chapter 44). This chapter is about listening intensely for behaviorally operational strengths and leveraging those strengths to support a person to move beyond undermining behaviors. We see people as they deserve to be seen, so they can see themselves as they deserve to be seen. This is a critical inflection point for people who have a longstanding history of received undermining assessments.
• “Motivational Interviewing” (Chapter 46) is a technique that has been shown to support positive behavioral outcomes and it is designed precisely to assure that people have control over what actions they choose to take and the pace of those actions.
• “Health Realization—Accessing a Higher State of Mind No Matter What” (Chapter 47) assumes that humans have a natural predisposition to be healthy, and that professionals can be more effective when we assume the role of facilitating youth back to that state of equilibrium.
• “Helping Adolescents Own their Solutions: Talking with Youth, Not at Them” (Chapter 48) focuses entirely on harnessing youth wisdom to help them reach healthier conclusions and develop their decision-making capacities.

Section 11: Caring for the Caregiver

• “Have I Really Made a Difference? Trusting That Our Presence Matters” (Chapter 95) reminds us that although we sometimes wonder if we have made a difference, we need to trust that our guidance can have a lasting effect—even after our visits are a distant memory. Our knowledge that we are planting seeds restores us on a daily basis.

Section 5: Communicating With Adolescents

• “Cultural Humility” (Chapter 28) understands that we are all “other” to somebody and that the only way we can be uniformly respectful to people is to consistently be prepared to learn about their culture and environment. A critical first step in being culturally humble, however, is having an awareness of our own unconscious biases.
• “Examining Our Unconscious Biases” (Chapter 29) looks at thinking patterns and assumptions we may have that can interfere with our ability to objectively draw the most appropriate conclusions, and even guide people towards their most positive futures.

Section 6: Working With Adolescents Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization

• “The Impact of Trauma on Development and Well-Being” (Chapter 36) offers the scientific grounding on what childhood trauma does to the body, brain, and behavior.
• “Trauma-Sensitive Practice: Working With Youth Who Have Faced Adverse Childhood (or Adolescent) Experiences” (Chapter 37) provides a detailed summary of the Reaching Teens Trauma-Sensitive Model and contextualizes it in the existing trauma-informed literature.
• “Reframing Youth Who Have Endured Trauma and Marginalization” (Chapter 38) covers the importance of avoiding labels and understanding past traumatic experiences as the origins of current behavior. It goes a step further by offering strategies in recognizing, elevating, and reinforcing the strengths of youth who have endured adversities.
• “The Traumatic Impact of Racism and Discrimination on Young People and How to Talk About It” (Chapter 42) discusses the life course impact of chronic stressors such as racial discrimination. It prepares professionals to have authentic discussions with youth about these undermining forces.

Section 10: Serving Young People Deserving of Focused Attention

These chapters titles suffice as explanation for their content.

• “Youth Who Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Queer/Questioning” (Chapter 82)
• “Serving Youth Who Are Transgender and Gender Diverse” (Chapter 83)

Section 3: Understanding Adolescents and Their World

• Female sexuality is covered in “Sex(uality) Happens: Fostering Healthy, Positive (Female) Sexuality” (Chapter 17). It covers the key developmental adolescent task of developing a healthy sexuality. It simultaneously addresses avoiding perilous risk behaviors sometimes associated with sexual awakening.
• “Male Sexuality” is addressed in Chapter 18. It covers the key developmental adolescent task of developing a healthy sexuality. It simultaneously addresses avoiding perilous risk behaviors sometimes associated with sexual awakening.
• “Working Toward a Healthy Masculinity” (Chapter 21) acknowledges that many young men feel pressure to fit into a box, and that in the efforts to live up to these externally imposed standards they give up a piece of themselves. This chapter prepares us to support young men to be a complete version of themselves.

Section 7: Empowering Adolescents to Build on Their Strengths and Avoid Undermining Behaviors

• “Stress Management and Coping: Powerful Strategies to Take Control Over One’s Life” (Chapter 50) will allow you to move beyond telling youth what not to do, and instead will prepare you to suggest positive coping strategies that also alleviate stress. The comprehensive coping strategy presented will aid youth to choose healthy means to deal with discomfort rather than reaching for potentially dangerous quick fixes.
• “Mindfulness Practice for Resilience and Managing Stress and Pain” (Chapter 51) helps youth live fully in the moment while forgetting the past and not worrying about the future. It relieves stress and allows focused thinking.

Section 8: Supporting Effective Parenting

• “Preparing Parents for Their Children’s Adolescence” (Chapter 53) suggests that looking forward to adolescence with a sense of dread will create a self-fulfilling downward spiral. We must celebrate this time of inspirational development. It also outlines a strategy that will help parents learn to honor adolescents’ growing independence and, therefore, hopefully prevent part of the rebellion sometimes associated with the teen years.
• “Promoting Balanced Parenting: Warmth, Clear Boundaries, and Effective Monitoring” (Chapter 54) will help you guide parents toward a parenting style that has been demonstrated to be associated with greater academic success, higher levels of emotional health, and lower risk among a wide spectrum of behaviors.
• “The Importance of Self-care for Parents” (Chapter 57) reminds us that parents of this generation often sacrifice themselves in order to give to their children. We professionals have a critical role in reminding parents that they need to put their oxygen masks on first. They are the role models of healthy adults, and the greatest gift they can give their child is demonstrating wise decision-making, healthy coping strategies, and living a balanced life that cares for others along with self.

Section 9: Mental, Emotional, And Behavioral Health

• “Reaching Treatment: An Overview of Mental Health Treatment” (Chapter 61) offers a brief explanation of different approaches to mental health treatment, enabling you to better understand the services you might suggest a young person should access. Further, it suggests strength-based language that will better position you to refer the teen to appropriate services while avoiding shame or stigma in the process.
• These chapters titles suffice as explanation for their content:
  • “Perfectionism” (Chapter 68)
  • “Adolescents and Substance Use” (Chapter 70)
  • “Adolescents and Opioid Use” (Chapter 71)
  • “Teen Pregnancy and Parenting” (Chapter 72)
  • “Teen Driving” (Chapter 73)
  • “Managing Electronic Media Use in the Lives of Adolescents” (Chapter 74)