Equipped To Help Teens

Ellen says...
This is a valuable resource for any youth worker - professional or volunteer - as they minister to students and families. The comprehensive guide includes great conversation starters and extensive resource listings - excellent for equipping you to engage teens in their hurt and questions.


About the resource...

Quick Reference Guide to Counselling Teenagers
Chap Clark and Dr. Tim Clinton
Paperback • Baker Publishing Group • 9780801072352

Youth culture changes rapidly, so those in the position to counsel and advise teens often find themselves ill-informed and ill-prepared to deal with the issues that youth routinely encounter today. The Quick-Reference Guide to Counseling Teenagers provides answers. This guide for pastors, counselors, youth workers, and parents addresses 40 topics addressed including: culture and media influence sexuality stress drugs and alcohol parent-adolescent relationships

An excerpt... 

Developmental psychologist Erik Erikson observed that the “identity crisis” of adolescence is the most significant conflict a person faces throughout life. During these crucial years, young people have to answer the question, Who am I? For many, the question seems overwhelming. The pressures of peers, the new drives of emerging hormones, and the expanding opportunities to experiment with behaviors can combine to create a perfect storm of temptation and self-doubt. Some seek help from mature adults, and many find forgiveness and direction in life through Christ, but some teens try to cope by resorting to self-destructive behaviors.

In today’s world of adolescence, cutting, dusting, choking, and salvia don’t refer to cutting vegetables, cleaning your house, or choking on a burger. These terms refer to practices that are more serious—much more serious. Five years ago you wouldn’t have heard these words used with the meanings that are now common in youth culture vernacular. They reveal how desperate for healing many of our youth are. Cutting refers to cutting oneself in a desperate attempt to relieve internal pain and depression. Dust Off is an aerosol computer keyboard cleaner that contains compressed gas and can be used to get high. Choking oneself can cause a euphoric state. And salvia is a hallucinogenic herb that is banned in eight states and is more powerful than and considered to be the next marijuana. These new fads among teens are leading to many deaths.

Teens are crying out for connection and looking anywhere to find it. “Rave” parties—large-scale gatherings with fast, electronic music and free-form crowd dancing, often coupled with the use of illegal drugs—have taken the place of family night at home. Sexual morality is as broad and relative a term as ever, reckless relationships abound, and parents have never before been so uninvolved or unsure about what to do. Ministering to teens has never been more difficult.

More free resources:
Full excerpt of the book in pdf form

Born and raised on Vancouver Island, Ellen Graf-Martin now lives in the heart of Ontario’s Mennonite country with her husband Dan, where she continues to work in publishing and ministry.Learn more about her work at www.grafmartin.com