Youth Service Bureau of St Joseph County Inc

While the population of homeless youth is extremely diverse, their common trait is that they are disconnected from adults they can depend upon to care for them. For 47 years, YSB has supported the core of a safety net for these youth through by focusing on the following main goals:

1. Fewer youth experience homelessness.
2. Youth who do become homeless experience only transitory stays in shelter or on the streets.
3. Multiple housing options and support services are readily available for homeless teens and young adults, including pregnant and parenting youth.
4. Homeless youth served attain education, employment and self-sufficiency goals.
5. Fewer youth return to homelessness after receiving services and successfully moving to stable housing.
6. Our community works collectively to make youth homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.

Our strategy is two-pronged:

Prevention and early intervention: Reach at-risk young people and prevent them from ever experiencing homelessness.

Rapid response to crisis: If a young person does experience homelessness or another serious crisis, respond rapidly and effectively.

While we prioritize family reunification or support as the initial intervention for youth experiencing homelessness, sometimes reunification is not appropriate or possible.

Our programming incorporates a trauma-informed approach which emphasizes physical, psychological, and emotional safety. In addition, staff works with parenting youth to ensure their children also receive trauma-informed care to reduce inter-generational trauma and adverse childhood experiences.

Our services are an indispensable alternative to involving teenagers and young adults with law enforcement, child welfare, mental health, and juvenile justice systems. Programs are structured to improve health, safety, and overall well-being; increase permanent adult connections; improve educational and employment outcomes and facilitate transitions to safe and stable housing.

Founded in 1972, Youth Service Bureau of St. Joseph County (YSB) has served tens of thousands of teenagers and young adults who have been homeless or at-risk of homelessness, living in poverty, pregnant or parenting (along with their children), and who may have been involved with the child welfare and juvenile justice systems.

The agency began as a municipal branch of the City of South Bend and became an independent 501 (c) 3 organization in 1985. Today, YSB remains the only agency in the region entirely focused on the needs of teenagers and young adults.

Our highly trained staff helps youth ages 12 to 18 repair their social and emotional foundations which have been damaged by abuse, neglect, homelessness and the absence of caring adults. We do this by offering a continuum of vital services including emergency shelter; trauma-informed crisis counseling, case management, street outreach and prevention services; transitional living and rapid rehousing options, and youth development programming, which are all provided at no cost to the individuals and families we serve.

Our programs have a long track record of delivering outstanding outcomes as evidenced by regular licensure by the State of Indiana and certification by the Indiana Youth Services Association, many years of strong support by the community and consistent funding from local, state and federal agencies. YSB has also been cited numerous times for excellence in programming and the agency’s leadership has been a well-respected and powerful voice advocating for homeless and at-risk youth before numerous local, state and federal entities, providing testimony to the United States Congress at the request of the late Senator Birch Bayh.

We are the only agency of its kind in the community that provides crisis intervention services specifically for teens and young adults. YSB is proud of our outstanding accomplishments in 2021:

97 teens received emergency shelter and/or crisis intervention services at Safe Station.

528 calls from families in crisis were answered by Safe Station staff.

128 young mothers were connected with resources to reach their goals of self-sufficiency and 84% of clients showed improvement in their parent functioning while 94% of families did not have a substantiated child abuse case after receiving services.

767 school children received educational presentations on topics such as social development, bullying, and conflict resolution.

4,700 kids received counseling and social development services on topics such as social development, bullying, and conflict resolution.

2,421 contacts were made with teens and young adults by YSB's Street Outreach team.

3,355 middle school and high school students received presentations on how to use Safe Place sites and Safe Station.