What does pastoral care for young people entail? How can I act pastorally in various situations when working with young people? What conditions must be met to engage in pastoral work? Youth pastoral care cannot be categorized under specific types of pastoral care such as emergency pastoral care, prison pastoral care, or telephone pastoral care, nor is it clear which area of church work it belongs to - school pastoral care, school-related youth work, or community practice. Based on insights from modern developmental psychology of adolescence and an analysis of current youth religiosity, the author develops a goal- and resource-oriented pastoral care approach for young people and illustrates it with numerous examples for pastoral practice. Youth pastoral care is described as a multidimensional field of practice, emphasizing the dimension of helping.