Responding to a Pennsylvania Legal professional General’s 75 ruling banning youth by incarceration with adults at Camp Mountain Correctional Service, Thomas Jeffers launched the Youth Supporter Program Incorporation. (YAP) in Harrisburg, Philadelphia.
In the early days, YAP’s objective was to offer community-based alternatives to institutionalization, incarceration and other out-of-home positionings. They did not operate any out-of-home proper care programs such as shelters, promote homes and residential features.
Over the years, seeking to stay current with the trends inside the juvenile and criminal rights system, YAP expanded it is model to provide services to a broader populace by developing 125 applications in 18 locations across the nation, which includes Washington D.
C. Today YAP has become a national and international leader committed to keeping young people and families collectively. Their target is to addresses the demands of junior who are, have been, or may be subject to compulsory treatment, providing them with opportunities to develop the skills required to enhance their unique strengths and interests, boost their life situations and produce positive advantages to the betterment of their community. This community-based-approach provides neighborhoods with secure, proven, powerful and cost-effective alternatives to institutional placement, and allows young people being valued and seen as assets by the associates of their community.
What is exceptional and pieces YAP apart from other community-based organizations is usually their multi-faceted service model comprised of the subsequent five central pillars: Community Advocacy employees and locomotives advocates coming from neighborhoods where youth and families live, matching the youth with an supporter, Needs-led and Strength-Based Appro..
ices, out-patient clinics and behavioral health needs. The Juvenile Proper rights component gives gang elimination and involvement, alternatives to detention, community reintegration and gender particular programming. YAP’s School-Based Providers offer truancy prevention, in-school suspension, and alternative school programming and after-school applications. Their Developmental Disabilities Companies for Children offers mental overall health diagnoses and services for individuals within the autism spectrum. Their particular Autism Support Services provide direct providers for training, educational and consultation services and the Autism Communication Examination Initiative. All their newly designed Adult Offender Program offers developmental solutions including re-entry support, transitional housing, TANF support, child-rearing and fatherhood programs, recognized work courses and adult autism services.