YAP® in Schools
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YAP® IN SCHOOLS

At the core of Youth Advocate Programs (YAP®), Inc.’s school-based services is the national nonprofit’s 50-year-old evidence-based YAPWrap® model. Learning of the unique wraparound approach’s effectiveness with deep-end systems-involved young people, school administrators began partnering with YAP in the early 1990’s to incorporate the model into their student safety and success strategies. YAP®’s school-based services have since evolved to also include specialized behavioral health support, delivered individually and/or in group settings. YAP® works with elementary, middle, and high school students with programs delivered year-round in school, after school, and in students’ homes.

Improving Attendance

Violence Prevention and Intervention

Fostering Academic Achievement

Life skills Development

Bullying & Conflict Resolution


Mental Health Treatment, Management & Support

Employment and Workforce Development

Substance Use Treatment

Family Conflict Resolution


Improving Behavior


Truancy Prevention


Reducing Suspensions


Improving Family Engagement

Basic Needs Support

College/Vocational Training

Financial Support

YAP® School-based Services incorporate intensive individualized student mentoring and family wraparound support delivered by YAP® staff Advocates who live in or are from the communities they serve. YAP® Advocates are trained to help students see and nurture their strengths and connect them and their parents/guardians with individualized educational, emotional and economic tools and basic needs resources to firm their family foundation. In addition, the YAPWrap® model offers program participants:

YAP® Supported Work

where students are matched with local businesses for paid employment.



YAPWORX®

a workforce development program designed for young people who face employment barriers where students earn a paycheck as they acquire job training skills.


The Tom Jeffers Scholarship Endowment Fund for Continuing Education

which, supported by YAP® employee donations, helps students and their parents/guardians further their education in college or career training programs.

YAP®’s Services

• Individualized and strength-based

• Delivered by neighborhood-based Advocates, Credible Messengers and other YAP® employees

• Student and parent/guardian family wraparound services

• School-based cognitive behavioral health therapy for adolescents responding to chronic stress

• Mobile individualized behavioral health services

• Social Emotional Curriculum focusing on self-awareness, self-control, interpersonal skills, managing emotions, responsibility, building healthy relationships

• Accountability/examining impact of violence and crime and repairing harm

• Suspension alternatives

• 24/7 Crisis Intervention

• "No Reject, No Eject" Approach

• School credit recovery assistance

• Year-round programming

YAP PURSUING EXCELLENCE®

YAP Pursuing Excellence® is a promising solution that can fill the gap to reach students identified as being at the greatest risk of being engaged as a perpetrator or victim of violence. The service is informed by Chicago’s Choose to Change® (C2C®), a YAP® partnership with Brightpoint that combines the YAPWrap® model with weekly Structured Psychotherapy for Adolescents Responding to Chronic Stress (SPARCS) sessions. A University of Chicago Crime and Education Lab study shows that two years after the program, C2C® reduces the likelihood that youth will be arrested for a violent crime by 39 percent.

Program Components
 YAP Pursuing Excellence® provides group or individualized behavioral health services delivered by YAP Behavioral Health professionals and/or other behavioral health services partners focusing on young people who have been exposed to chronic stress, violence, abuse and other traumatic experiences. The behavioral health component to the program also incorporates treatment for substance use and prevention services.
 YAP Advocates connect participants to needed educational support -- tutors, school mentors, GED prep classes, and college visits.
 YAP Supported Work, YAPWORX®, and the YAP® employee-funded Tom Jeffers Endowment Fund for Continuing Education Scholarship.
 Youth and their families will also participate in restorative justice activities like peace circles that address individual and community healing, accountability, and repairing harm.






YAP® SCHOOL-BASED DIVERSION SERVICES

YAP®’s School-based Diversion programs assist school districts in addressing behaviors that can often lead to detention and arrests. School administrators tell us that suspension and detention, and having students go to court and face fines only create additional school attendance barriers for parents and guardians already struggling with complex life challenges. Aimed to keep students out of youth justice systems, YAP Diversion services are individualized and can include: transportation, wake-up calls and visits, connecting families with basic needs resources (food banks, housing assistance, help with utilities)
 YAP® Supported Work
 YAPWORX®
 Behavioral Health Services (Connecting students and family members with YAP mental health professionals and/or other specialized substance use, anger-management, emotional trauma, domestic violence, and/or other community mental health service providers)
 Academic Support (Connecting students to tutoring and other individualized academic support services)
 College and Job Training Assistance (Tom Jeffers Endowment Fund Scholarship for Continuing Education)













Truancy Prevention and Out-of-School Re-Engagement

YAP®’s Truancy, and Out-of-School Re-engagement services align with the YAPWrap® student and family wraparound services model with an emphasis on interventions that increase student engagement, improve learning, and prevent system-involvement. YAP® Advocates work with students and families across four principal areas:
 Morning accountability to establish in-home structure, morning routines, accountability, consistency and competency development
 Parental engagement to implement consistency in consequences, effective communication strategies (emphasizing connection with the school), competency development, development of natural supports and crisis/safety planning
 Supporting academic achievement through tutoring, connection with teachers and school staff, encouraging positive and practical attitudes toward education, competency development, and implementing tools to strengthen accountability of success/failure and self-esteem.
 Community engagement to connect students and their families to positive people, places and activities within the community based on their individual interests and needs.

This range of support establishes in-home structure, morning routines, communication strategies, connections with teachers, parental consistency in consequences, and positive attitudes towards education. YAP®’s Advocate support includes accompanying students and families to court hearings and school meetings, and if necessary, advocating on their behalf.

Truancy Program Outcomes:

71% promoted to next grade level

71% improvement in grades

77% improvement in tardiness

83% improvement in attendance

YAP PURSUING EXCELLENCE®

Yowell

Yowell was 13 when his Middlesex County, New Jersey middle school referred him to YAP® for bullying and fighting. Six months later, in addition to having no fighting disciplinary actions at school, Yowell had straight A’s. Yowell is a participant in the YAP® New Jersey Community-Based Violence Prevention Program, a YAP Pursuing Excellence® start-up that launched in five counties in 2022, in partnership with The New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA). The program serves youth ages 12-18 who have a history of school suspensions, truancies, illegal or violent behavior and/or dealing with mental health or substance use issues. The program combines YAPWRAP® Credible Messenger-delivered individual and family services with weekly group sessions designed to address violence-related trauma. Middlesex County YAP® Program Director Emanuel Shumate said while helping communities and schools reduce violence, the program has also been a promising school engagement tool. In 2024, the five-county program reached its goal with 80% of participants not being adjudicated/delinquent on violent offenses. Program leaders and YAP® Credible Messengers, many of whom have backgrounds similar to the youth they serve, were encouraged to see that 79% of participants also regularly attended school and/or vocational training and 80% of the youth exhibited desired behaviors that included reaching their school and substance abuse-related goals.


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