Founded in 1975, YAP is a nonpartisan national nonprofit organization. Our employees in urban, rural, and suburban communities in 35 states and the District of Columbia fully represent America politically and demographically.

YAP is not a social justice organization, but rather, a change leader that for a half century in partnership with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, education, and other public systems, delivers community-based youth and family rehabilitative and behavioral health wraparound services that have been proven to reduce recidivism while keeping youth, families and communities safe and saving taxpayer dollars.

YAP’s unique wraparound services model, which guides all our work, reduces crime and recidivism by addressing society’s most complex challenges. Our neighborhood-based staff work directly and individually with youth and families, firming their foundation by connecting them with tools that address their individualized economic, educational, and emotional challenges -- with practices that incorporate accountability, restorative justice, respect for victims’ rights, and giving back to their communities -- so that our program participants are successful once our services end.

YAP’s government funded contracts, which support our work with children and families, require written plans on how we meet requirements for Equal Opportunity Employment Certification. In our five decades of delivering services, we have served program participants of all backgrounds from urban, suburban, and rural communities. With our no reject, no eject policy, we accept all referrals. With most of our participants living in poverty and given the disproportionate numbers of youth of color we serve (nearly 70% of our referrals), we are in a unique position to give our youth justice, child welfare, education, behavioral health and other systems partners an opportunity to have great outcomes for all youth and families, despite their background, and thus, we're a change leader.

With the success of our work with systems-involved youth, more communities across the U.S. are engaging YAP as a public safety partner where we are using principles of our evidence-based youth and family community-based services model to help reduce neighborhood violence. As one of two Group Violence Reduction Strategy (GVRS) service providers in Baltimore, YAP’s GVRS team receives referrals from the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) who have been identified as being at the highest risk of engaging in gun violence. YAP GVRS outreach workers and life coaches offer a safer, more effective alternative to violence -- individualized educational, economic, and emotional tools that empower people to put lives on a positive course. While law enforcement puts its resources into policing, YAP focuses on what we do best -- deliver direct services that make neighborhoods safer by helping people redirect their lives, thus playing an important role in reducing homicides and shootings and decreasing recidivism.

YAP’s neighborhood-based Advocates are paid staff members who are trained to advocate for our program participants by connecting them and their parents and guardians with individualized educational, economic, and emotional tools to put their lives on a positive course. Separately, YAP Voice gives current and former program participants an opportunity to share their success stories with the public so that policy makers and others understand and appreciate that with holistic wraparound services from YAP Advocates and behavioral health professionals, biographies can change. YAP’s public policy work does not align with any political party or ideology, but rather promotes youth justice/child welfare/behavioral health community-based programming and educational and employment opportunities policies that ensure fair and just treatment for youth and families, regardless of their background.