Successful peer helping or peer group treatment interventions for at-risk youth engage the curative power of some primary child development strategies. Coaching at-risk adolescents to help others has been a primary therapeutic tool in peer helping programs for over 50 years. High and moderate risk youth can benefit greatly from programs that utilize key child development strategies embedded in the practice of helping others. A properly functioning adolescent peer group treatment program will include many sound childhood developmental elements in its program format. Peer group treatment, sometimes called Positive Peer Culture (PPC), has systematically utilized "helping others" as its mantra. In this article, the author talks about how positive peer groups meet the primary developmental needs of at-risk adolescents.