This article critiques recent efforts to improve the capacity of human service institutions to meet the needs of urban youth. It identifies as an important risk factor the dissonance between these youth's cultural identities and the norms of the social institutions serving them. The authors suggest that efforts to overcome this dissonance focus on a reconceptualization of professionalism among youth providers, whereupon the primary goals of service delivery become the empowerment of urban youth and the enablement of a defiant adaptation among them; emphasize strong youth-professional relationships; and utilize existing social networks of community organizations and social institutions. INTRODUCTION In the past decade, public concern over the effectiveness of youth delivery systems in meeting the needs of urban youth has steadily increased. Policymakers have pointed to near-epidemic levels of juvenile crime, adolescent pregnancy, substance abuse and high school dropout as evidence of institutional failure (Dryfoos, 1990; Hamburg, 1992; Hechinger,1992). Our current models of reform have identified the fragmentation, specialization, and complexity of our health, education, and social service systems as the cause for this failure and have strongly advocated the integration of social service systems as a means to more adequately provide support for urban youth (Dryfoos, 1994; Gardner, 1989; Kirst, 1991; Morrill, 1992). Consistent with this reform effort, models of comprehensive, integrated, and schoollinked have been implemented across the country. Recent research and evaluation studies, however, have suggested that institutional change may not be the critical solution service providers are searching for in their efforts to address youth needs (Cummins, 1993; Luker, 1996; McKnight, 1995; White & Wehlage, 1995). White and Wehlage (1995) have noted that our current service agencies deliver human on a categorical and contractual basis (p. 34). Furthermore, they suggest that professional commitment to client well-being is simply a of a commitment to one's employer to provide services (p. 34). Absent a strong commitment motivated by concern for the client, professional relationships in these agencies tend to be regulated, clearly defined, and contractually limited. McKnight (1995) has defined one of the problems of professionalism within the human in terms of his distinction between service and care. While professional are managed, produced, organized, and administered, McKnight maintains that care is the consenting commitment of citizens to one another (p. x). He further argues that the hierarchical, authoritarian structure of institutions serving youth creates a difficult setting for the establishment of caring relationships. Rather, as a product of our growing service economy, the professionals within these institutions are dependent upon the problems of youth for their professional survival. Hence, it is not surprising that our institutions and their policies typically choose as their purpose the alleviation of adolescent problems (i.e., teen pregnancy, gang violence, school failure, etc.), and target categories of deficiency within youth or families (i.e., low self-esteem, moral decline, lack of male role models, etc.) as the foci of their and the rationale for their funding. Given the pervasiveness of this model of professionalization, it is important to take a step back from issues of implementation and institutional change and reconsider how human for young people in urban settings are mediated. Thus, we begin this paper with an examination of the problems of professionalism inherent in our approach to human services. Based upon the present article's analysis of issues related to cultural identity, political control of youth, empowerment, and social justice, we recommend the reconceptualization of professionalism within social service agencies serving adolescents. …