Youth and Family Services

Youth & Family Services (yfs) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support children and their families in being capable, caring, and contributing members of the community. To fulfill this mission, yfs offers nine comprehensive programs to children, from birth through age 18, and their families. Annually, yfs serves more than 14,000 individuals in rapid city and throughout 29 counties in western south dakota. Yfs child development center offers state-licensed, affordable, quality child care serving children, 4 weeks through third grade. The program focuses on the unique needs of low-income families. During the 2021-2022 fiscal year, this program served 285 children and 89% of families who enrolled their children in this program were low-income. Yfs counseling center offers crisis intervention, assessments, counseling, and trauma treatment Services that help young people and their families overcome challenges and pave the way for an improved quality of life. During the 2021-2022 fiscal year, this program provided counseling Services to 400 unduplicated Youth and adults. Yfs Family support and advocacy Services is comprised of several programs - boys' health program, fatherhood first, health connections, intensive Family Services program, stronger Family program, stronger Youth program, and Youth vip connect - that offer support, education, mentoring, coaching, and access to needed Services and resources for families, both parents and children. During the past fiscal year, 134 girls and boys received Services through yfs' health connections and boys' health programs. These innovative, referral-based programs worked to meet the physical, mental, and social health needs of at-risk children, ages 5 to 18, by connecting them with medical, dental and mental health service providers in the community. The intensive Family Services program served 6 previously unserved Youth and their families and assisted them in developing the skills necessary to maintain a safe, nurturing, and stable Family environment in order to prevent the out-of-home placement of children for behavioral or criminal issues. The yfs' stronger Youth program and stronger Family program provided relationship education classes to 286 new adults and 208 unduplicated Youth during the last year. Yfs connect program is designed to respond to and advocate for Youth and Youth adults, ages 11 24, who have been affected by sexual violence, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, and/or trafficking. This program provided case management, mentoring, and trauma intervention programming to 49 Youth this past year and healthy relationship education, prevention Services, and leadership/positive bystander training to 183 Youth. Yfs girls Inc. of rapid city offers award-winning educational, recreational, and community action programming that inspires girls, ages 6 -11, to be strong, smart, and bold. This past fiscal year, 384 girls participated in programming to improve their life skills, gender equality, relationships, and more. Yfs head start is a federally funded, no-cost, parent-focused program that serves low-income children, ages 0-5, and their families. Yfs offers two head start programs: yfs home-based head start is an early childhood education program offering in-home Services and activities as well as regularly scheduled socialization opportunities for children in seven western south dakota counties including: pennington, meade, fall river, custer, jackson, haakon, and lawrence. Services for expectant parents are also available. Yfs rapid city head start offers comprehensive programming to enhance physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development for children through classroom activities. Yfs middle school program offered engaging programming and activities for 119 middle school Youth in a safe environment that provides the opportunity for adult mentorship, positive peer-to-peer interactions, homework help, and more. Yfs nutrition Services oversees the provision of well-balanced meals and snacks for children within agency programs and registered, in-home child care providers in 29 counties each year. Educational Services are also provided. This past year, the program prepared and distributed weekly meal-to-go packs for more than 800 children enrolled in yfs programs and provided or oversaw the provision of 657,157 meals and snacks to children. Yfs western prevention resource center offers training and assistance in the prevention of violence, tobacco use, drug and alcohol abuse, and more. An extensive library of videos and materials is available for anyone to check out. Consultations also provided. Training and outreach Services available in 24 western south dakota counties. This past year, yfs' western prevention resource center provided prevention programming to 1,227 unduplicated individuals and partnered with coalitions to impact more than 10,000 Youth and adults. This program facilitated a methamphetamine-focused drug education class for 180 middle-school students in four underserved communities and shared resources and education materials with 339 community members related to south dakota's avoid opioids campaign.