Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. Puzzled by Tarrant County Commissioners’ Quick Reversal on Contract Decision

Within three hours, the Tarrant County, TX Board of Commissioners reversed a decision it made earlier in the day Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, to prevent the Tarrant County Juvenile Board from awarding to another provider a contract for services provided for 32 years by Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc. 

After a two-hour closed executive session, the Commission reversed its earlier 3-2 vote with a re-vote of 4-1 -- with Commissioner Alisa Simmons opposing -- to reject a contract for another provider to deliver alternative-to-youth-detention services in Tarrant County. In July, the Juvenile Board terminated YAP’s four Tarrant County Juvenile Services contracts after some of the board’s judges questioned language on YAPInc.org about how the nonprofit’s work helps its local youth justice, child welfare and education systems reduce racial disparities.  

Founded in 1975 in Harrisburg, PA, YAP is a national nonpartisan nonprofit in 35 states and the District of Columbia that delivers safe and effective evidence-based rehabilitative community-based youth and family wraparound services as an alternative to detention, incarceration, residential care and other out-of-home placement. Known in Tarrant County as Tarrant County Advocate Program (TCAP), YAP has served the Texas county for 32 years.

“What was said in the closed executive session that changed the commissioners’ minds?” asked YAP President and CEO Gary Ivory. “Tarrant County Taxpayers and our community partners who tell us they want us to continue providing services in the county deserve to know. The youth and families who are caught in the middle, devastated by being cut off from services with their YAP Advocates, do not deserve to be caught in this political power pull.”

Until the Tarrant County Juvenile Board terminated YAP’s local contracts, the nonprofit’s signature trauma-informed YAPWrap™ youth and family wraparound services and YAP Santa Fe Youth Services (SFYS) Families in Transition (FIT) substance use services were delivered as an alternative to detaining youth facing charges for minor to serious offenses. YAP’s “no reject, no eject” model empowers youth to see their strengths while connecting their parents and guardians to economic, educational and emotional tools that also firm the family’s foundation.  Among the YAPWrap™ model’s economic tools are YAP Supported Work, YAPWORX™, and the YAP employee-funded Tom Jeffers Endowment Fund for Continuing Education Scholarship

Two of YAP’s four contracts provided wraparound services for up to 292 justice-involved Tarrant County youth (with 53 program participants when the Juvenile Board terminated the contract) annually and up to 131 FIT program participants (22 participants when the Juvenile Board terminated the contract) per year. YAP’s wraparound Advocate services cost taxpayers $311 weekly for each youth served, compared to a weekly detention cost of $2,207. YAP’s Santa Fe Youth Services (SFYS) FIT substance use services cost taxpayers $440 weekly for each youth served, compared to a weekly detention cost of $2,207.

 While other providers deliver some of what YAP provides, its five-decades-old model is designed to serve the highest risk youth with the nonprofit’s holistic approach. YAP’s decades of service include working with many young people whose histories include serious offenses, multiple arrests, and lengthy out-of-home placements. John Jay College of Criminal Justice research found 86% of YAP’s youth justice participants remain arrest free, and six – 12 months after completing the program, nearly 90% of the youth still lived in their communities with less than 5% of participants in secure placement. (See the infographic below on YAP’s TCAP Tarrant County outcomes.)

 “YAP has been so committed to our work that even in the face of inflation and job market pressures when our contract dollars have not been covering costs, we have been subsidizing Tarrant County taxpayers’ investment with donor funds so as not to disrupt services,” said YAP CEO Gary Ivory.

Through 11 months of last fiscal year, YAP subsidized the county’s contracts with a total of $113,192 in national donor funding and in the previous fiscal year national donor funds subsidized the nonprofit’s Tarrant County contracts with more than $192,000.

“So, while the intention is for 85%-87% of local taxpayer dollars to remain in the Tarrant County community, in recent years, 100% of funding has remained local. Also of note, we spend $0 Tarrant County dollars on lobbying,” Ivory added.

 Below are answers to questions raised by Tarrant County Juvenile Board members about YAP’s nonpartisan position. 

Q) Does YAP’s website position the organization as an ideological, socially partisan organization?

A) No. Upon learning that some of the Tarrant County District judges were under the impression that rather than explaining that YAP Advocates are neighborhood-based staff who work with youth and families, our national website, YAPInc.org positioned YAP’s advocacy work as ideological, we scanned the site to provide needed clarity. While no stated “DEI” or “Diversity Initiatives” existed on our site, there were areas where we clarified language about how we partner with local youth justice, child welfare and other government agencies to help them reduce disparities so that all children have the same opportunities to succeed. More boldly, in a Q&A on our homepage (spelled out in this document, below), we explained that YAP’s employees represent the extremely diverse rural, urban, and suburban communities that we serve and from where we recruit staff across the U.S. We commit to continuing to monitor the site and to provide additional clarity where needed.

Q) Does YAP indoctrinate program participants and their families?

A) It is important to note that our staff represent the wide and varying scope of the very American communities that we serve. We do not in any way indoctrinate the youth and families we serve. We offer current and former program participants and their parents/guardians the opportunity to become a part of YAP Voice, an opportunity for them to share their stories to raise awareness of our work among policy makers. In these cases, we refrain from suggesting that they make any statements regarding political affiliation. Our aim with our YAP Voice initiative is to give lawmakers and other policymakers an understanding of how our work transforms lives to make communities safer.

Q) Do Tarrant County dollars pay for YAP lobbyists?

A) While YAP pays lobbyists in some states, we do not have a lobbyist in Texas and do not use local taxpayer dollars to support out-of-state lobbying efforts. Like our programmatic work, YAP’s policy and advocacy work is nonpartisan and we are extremely careful to keep it that way so as not to jeopardize our 501C (3) nonprofit status.

Q) What’s YAP’s relationship with the Ft. Worth Police Department?

A) We’re building a relationship with the new Community Partnership program, and we have participated in various YAP staff training courses that have been extremely important to our employees professionally and in helping them strengthen trust of law enforcement in the communities we serve. We have received letters of support from law enforcement supporting renewal of our contracts.

Q) What happens if you learn that a YAP program participant violated probation or court-ordered conditions and do YAP staff members appear with program participants for their court appearances?

A) We report violations of probation or court ordered conditions to the assigned probation officer. Our historic practice has been to provide support for the youth and family by appearing with them for the participant’s court appearances. The exception has been where a Tarrant County Juvenile Services staffer has asked us to hold off on coming to court. Whether we go to court or not, we always provide a court report to the assigned probation officer.

YAP has also provided a Q & A on the homepage of its national website.