Youth Equipped for Success

For over six years, Youth Equipped for Success (Y.E.S.) has provided recreational and educational opportunities to families in Spirit Lake, Idaho and the surrounding area with satisfying results as evidenced by high school graduations, family skills development, and prosocial interactions with positive community feedback. Y.E.S. has helped mentor 80 individuals and over 500 youth have attended recreational activities and life skills classes over the years. Our mission is to provide at-risk youth, during an impressionable point in their lives, the opportunity to accept accountability, repair harm, and become a contributing member of society through therapeutic, educational, and social opportunities with a systems-based case management approach.

Y.E.S. specifically assists youth, ages 10 and up, identified “at risk” by family and community members, mental health professionals, and juvenile offender programs including Diversion and Probation. “At-risk” is defined through family difficulties, trouble with school or the law, deceitful, violent, or manipulative behaviors, and mental health needs.  In addition to serving these identified participants, Y.E.S. provides services to family members and guardians. The community of Spirit Lake encompasses over 1200 youth. Of our community residents, only 9.7% of those over 25 years of age have a bachelor’s degree or higher. In 2007, 16.4% of our residents had incomes below the poverty level while 7.3% of our residents had an income below 50% of the poverty level.  Youth raised in an impoverished home environment often suffer from barriers that reduce opportunities for positive educational and social decisions.

Services to our families are limited and often restrictive to due to low income and lack of transportation. Furthermore, there are no local programs that offer reward based incentives coupling as functional family development. Y.E.S. works with individuals and families to create a service plan with specific incentive driven goals and objectives tailored to motivate and provide an outlet to build competence. Exceptional opportunities are then made available for families to interact in recreational activities as motivation for practicing newly obtained skills and to increase community awareness and participation.   Cash assistance will be provided as needed to help fund rewarding activities upon goal completion.