Low-income, urban adolescents often come from communities in which violence is a common occurrence. Although exposure to violence has harmful psychological effects on adolescents, clinicians seeing them rarely ask them directly about their exposure to safety risks in their environment. Safety and violence are significant issues for adolescents. However, when asked, inner-city adolescents will talk openly about violence in their lives. This article presents research findings extracted from a clinical intake questionnaire, Adquest, designed by clinicians to solicit information about prior experiences of trauma and present safety among adolescents seeking mental health counseling. The instrument is intended to open an ongoing dialogue with prospective clients about their development-in-context as a means of building a helping relationship and planning for constructive change. The findings indicate that a substantial portion of Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center (AHC) mental health service applicants routinely experiences serious environmental safety risks with males reporting higher rates of risks related to physical violence and females reporting higher rates of risk associated with sexual violence or abuse. A consistent pattern of environmental risk increasing with age may have been due to older adolescents’ greater geographical mobility, social interaction, and their spending less time under direct adult supervision. Tables and references