Youth Services System, Inc.

Our founding mission that keeps us going every day is instilling a sense of worth and purpose in the youth and adults we serve. We build relationships with the youth in our emergency shelters, transitional living, mentoring program, before- and after-school programs and behavioral health services. We do that by listening, making eye contact and showing them by our actions that they matter: They are important, they deserve a better future, and we are here to help them achieve that future. We offer the adults in our Recovery Homes and Winter Freeze Shelter more than just basic needs of food and shelter. We provide a warmth centered on caring, a nourishment that feeds not just their bodies but their minds and souls. Loneliness is a public health crisis; recovery happens in community.

PREVENTION
Our strategy starts with our Prevention Services department. In 2019, 3,283 youth participated in our evidence-based prevention education in our region. Our prevention programs include alcohol, tobacco products (including vaping) and substance use prevention, as well as suicide prevention and mental health awareness programs in schools and at community events. We were a 10-year (maximum) recipient of the federal Drug Free Communities grant, through which we established drug take-back sites and programs throughout our state, conducted compliance checks for sales of alcohol and tobacco in our region, provided prevention programming, built community coalitions in four counties, and conducted community surveys of youth and adults that informed our evidence-based approaches to prevention.
DIRECT CARE
The heart of our direct care services is our Emergency Shelter program for boys and girls, which were the first of their kind in the state, and the Transitional Living Program for older youth aging out of foster care or otherwise at risk of homelessness. In both programs, we use a comprehensive youth-centered model to identify and serve youth and also provides outreach and gateway services. Identified through screening, qualified youth are sheltered, provided food, clothing, counseling and case management. We work to reunify youth with their families if possible and provide safe and appropriate exits no matter what. Through a Positive Youth Development model, staff will work with youth on four core areas: achieving social and emotional well-being, obtaining education and employment, building permanent connections, and placement in safe and stable housing. YSS works with the HUD Northern Panhandle Continuum of care, faith communities, Project HOPE homeless outreach medical service, other shelters and providers, WV Department of Health and Human Resources, local schools and others to identify and serve these youth. We use the Casey Life Skills Inventory, which gives each youth the opportunity to self-report their personal struggles and goals, then staff works with them to achieve these goals while they are with us.
HOMELESS/RECOVERY SERVICES
Our Winter Freeze Shelter operates 90 days/year from Dec. 15-March 15. We had 270 different individuals stay with us in 2019-20. We provide food, fellowship, dormitory housing, clothing, boots, winter gear, toiletries. We also connect our guests with resources, including medical care, mental health care, drug and alcohol treatment/recovery services, government benefit programs, housing programs, education and employment options, and more. We partner with local social service agencies and volunteers that form a support network to care for these most vulnerable of our neighbors. We have two recovery homes for men and women and are opening a third home soon that will double the number of beds available.
All our services are free of charge to clients.

We have been serving vulnerable youth since 1974 and have grown from one emergency shelter to a system including 10 buildings and 25 programs. We receive funding from federal, state and local governments, private foundations, businesses, churches and individuals. We have nearly 200 employees, an established Development Department and the good will of our community.

We have directly touched the lives of more than 60,000 youth since 1974. The Lazarus House and Mary & Martha House have served more than 500 adults in recovery over the past 18 years. In fiscal year 2019, our Prevention Services department reached 5,650 youth and thousands more adults. Also that year, we reached thousands of local school students with our mental health and wellness programming.
We plan to continue building on the programs that are successful and working to improve our ability to reach and impact youth. We will continue to follow the exhortation of our founding director, the late Ronald C. Mulholland, who said: "The one absolute, the one moral imperative, is that we must respond! We must say yes ... yes ... and yes again. Children cannot survive our failed efforts. Children can no longer be seen as a constituency worthy of only occasional concern. Children are the future! If their needs, hopes, desires are not addressed with a seriousness that equals the stakes involved, we as a society have failed and will suffer the consequences for years to come."