Outside the margrins: Youth who are different and their special health care needs

Some adolescents have differences, not of their own choosing, that require different approaches to clinical assessment and care. These adolescents are often marginalized from their peer group, and often isolated in general. Awareness of the differences in health risks that these youth face, and their challenges in the successful mastery of developmental tasks is important to the clinician who serves them. Health care professionals must avoid three things in their efforts to help these groups of young people: judging, preaching, or becoming an agent of social control, even though such efforts may be well meaning. This article addresses some of the unique needs of gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth; homeless adolescents; foster care youth; and youth who have disabilities.