When to refer youth with problems

When confronted with youth with seeming deep emotional problems:

• Few front-line youth workers have the time and training to do deep, long-term counseling. However, because we love them and believe ourselves to be competent, we are often slow to refer a youth or parents to professional counselors.
  
• Our job, most often, is “triage” – we try to determine whether they simply need a psychological or spiritual “band-aid,” which we can provide, or they have deep wounds that need to be treated by a specialist.
  
• When in doubt, refer.
  
• Currently, cross gender counseling is not likely. Find someone of the opposite gender that you trust and send youth of that gender there.