The purpose of this book is to show the need for pastoral counseling

as a model for encouraging teenagers at risk in “South” St. Petersburg to

turn their lives around. It will further suggest the need for a network as

a vehicle to bring pastoral counseling to these individuals. With proper

counseling, teenagers at risk in “South” St. Petersburg will be able to

make sound decisions and cope with the conflicting demands of a broken

family unit. They will be able to deal with a school system that has not

provided for their needs, peers who have failed to listen and understand

the need of belonging and city, which has become blind to adolescents.

This writer will attempt to show that by using the pastoral

counseling approach, the adolescents will be able to readjust to the

demands of a productive lifestyle, to develop their talents and provide

their families and neighborhoods with the opportunity to play a part in

restoration. This book will present development issues of adolescents at

risk, family and institutional issues for adolescents at risk, and a pastoral

counseling approach for these types of adolescents.

What one sees in “South” St. Petersburg is a depressing picture of the plight of teenagers at risk, suggesting that our political, economical, and social institutions have ignored, neglected, or even conspired against the needs of these adolescents. Is it not possible or even probable that a pastoral counseling approach might bring them into the mainstream and build community spirit?

Even though the city tries to appease the public with task force efforts and renamed social service programs, St. Petersburg as a whole, has written these “at risk” adolescents off. These at risk adolescents continue to grow in alarming numbers and constitute a burgeoning group that is alienated from other adolescents. They have low expectations for themselves and their community has low expectations for them. The families of adolescent at risk tend to produce the revolving addict, the criminal, the violent, the uneducated, and the chronically poor, with mental, physical, social, and spiritual deficiencies. The adolescents at risk in “South” St. Petersburg are the ones left behind.

Before this research begins, it is necessary to present this researcher’s personal background as it stimulated this researcher’s research on pastoral counseling of adolescents in “South” St. Petersburg.  This writer is one of seven children born to parents that were laborers in the field of masonry and laundry.  This researcher attended the local schools in “South” St. Petersburg. She worked, along with her siblings, at an early age in the laundry to help support the family’s needs.

Charlene Sanders is an author and a retired United States Air Force Captain. She is a graduate of University of South F l o r ida with a Bachelor’s degree in Social and Behavioral Sciences, emphasis in Criminal Justice. She is a graduate from Troy State U n i v e r s i t y < /SPAN> with a Master’s degree in Public Administration. She also holds a Master’s in Pastoral Counseling from St. Petersburg Theological Seminary. She is the author of  “In The House: Pastoral Counseling of Adolescents in “South” St. P e t e r s burg”. She is a Christian speaker and counselor. She is the founder and president of In The House Ministries, I n c orporated.