What is an effective approach with substance-dependent adolescents who present in crisis? How can social workers, counselors, and health professionals engage treatmentresistant youths? What actions can be utilized to develop a plan of care that youths will find challenging and worth participating in? This article seeks to answer the questions posed through application of Roberts’s Seven-Stage Crisis Intervention Model. Specific attention is given to a case application of Roberts’s model in conjunction with strengthsbased perspective and solution-focused treatment approaches. [Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 5:19‐33 (2005)]