This state-of-the-art practitioner resource and course text provides a comprehensive view of adolescent development and spells out effective ways to help teens who are having difficulties. The book illuminates protective and risk factors in the many contexts of adolescents' lives, from individual attributes to family, school, neighborhood, and media influences. An ecological perspective is applied to understanding and addressing specific adolescent challenges, including substance abuse, sexual identity issues, mental health problems, risky sexual behavior, and delinquency. Throughout the text, clear-cut assessment and intervention strategies are illustrated with rich case examples. This book will be important for practitioners and students in social work, clinical child/adolescent and school psychology, psychiatry, family therapy, counseling, and nursing. It will also serve as a text in undergraduate- and graduate-level courses such as social work practice with adolescents, human behavior and the social environment, human development, and adolescent counseling and psychotherapy, and in psychiatric residency programs.