YMCA Youth & Family Services is a social service branch of the YMCA. With eighteen program sites and sixty staff members, YFS provides assistance to over 6,000 at-risk children and adults each year. Offering programs ranging from family and individual counseling to mentoring and crisis intervention, YFS helps those most in need overcome diverse challenges.
CONTACT US:
Phone: (301) 587-5700 Email: yfsemail@ymcadc.org For list of site phone numbers Click Here
UPCOMING EVENTS: Tee off for a good cause. Join YMCA Silver Spring and Youth & Family Services for the Fourth Annual Fundraising Golf Tournament. The Tournament will be held on Tuesday, September 29, 2009 at Argyle Country Club. All proceeds go towards the Building Bridges Campaign, which provides scholarships for individuals and families in need of Y services. Please call Linda Medina at 301-587-5700 x2561 or email Linda.Medina@ymcadc.org for more information.
CLICK HERE* for golf player and golf sponsorship details.
CLICK HERE* for secure on-line credit card registration
Parent Education Workshops:
CLICK HERE* for the current Parent Education schedule
Mental Health Conference: Therapists, counselors and those who work with children are encouraged to attend the YMCA Youth & Family Services Conference "Treating Children with Relational Trauma" with Marcia Scheinberg, LCSW on November 6, 2009.
CLICK HERE* for more information.
Register for the conference online by clicking Easy to Enroll and searching Youth & Family Services.
Friday Night Climbing Wall:
CLICK HERE* for the Fall 2009 Schedule for the Friday Night Climbing Wall.
YMCA YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES SERVICES AND PROGRAMS
After-School Activities
Our community based service sites host after-school programs that provide homework assistance and academic enrichment (literacy groups), youth development and life skill activities (radio-controlled car workshop), and recreation (sports, group games, field trips).
Counseling
We provide counseling for individuals, families, and groups. Our master's level counselors help build on existing strengths while teaching new ways to cope with today's situations. Groups are offered according to community and school needs such as: Acculturation, Bullying, Anger Management, Loss and Grief, Parenting Support, and Social Skills.
Horizons
In this therapeutic adventure program, an experiential education model is used to develop trust, promote teamwork, and build self-confidence. These themes are woven into activities such as games and initiatives, white water rafting, rock climbing, rappelling, caving, and ropes courses. Through challenging activities, teens learn new ways to handle the personal and social challenges of adolescence. Horizons also provides a Friday Night Climbing Wall that allows youth and families the unique opportunity to spend time together, strengthening their relationships.
Outreach
Our multicultural and bilingual staff reaches out to make contact with at-risk youth and their parents through local schools and the community. Through successful collaborations with schools, county government, and community organizations YFS helps address the needs of youth and their families and respond to problems as they arise, such as cooperative playgrounds, bus behavior intervention, and classroom meeting trainings.
Parent Education
Professional staff and trained parent volunteer leaders provide workshops and classes that help parents to be more effective in parent-child and/or parent-teen relationships. We offer our workshops at libraries and at PTA and school sponsored programs that are tailored to fit the needs of the community.
Youth Workshops, presentations, and groups are provided through area schools on a range of topics such as stress management, effective social skills, anger management, depression, suicide, substance abuse, and anti-bullying.
Y's Words: Parenting Children and Parenting Teens Workshops and classes are available for parents of preschool through high school age children to explore such topics as bedtime/morning struggles, lying, chores and sibling fighting. Parents will learn to identify the purpose of a child's misbehavior and develop effective discipline and encouragement strategies for positively redirecting these behaviors. These programs offer parents an opportunity to become familiar with the concepts of logical and natural consequences, mutual respect, encouragement, and goals of misbehavior. The group discussion format teaches skills to help improve parent/teen relations, develop teenage self-esteem, and promote responsible teenage behavior at home, in school, and in the community.
CLICK HERE* to download the fall 2009 parenting schedule.
CLICK HERE* to download a Spanish copy of the fall 2009 parenting schedule. Talleras Para Los Padres: Explicando el papel de los padres apoyando el xito de sus hijos.
School Based Services
Mental health and case management services are offered through a collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services and Montgomery County Public Schools at YMCA Linkages to Learning sites in eleven area schools. YMCA Linkages to Learning staff work closely with families to improve social, economic, health, and emotional issues that interfere with the academic success of the child.
Service Coordination
Case management, crisis intervention, resource information, and referrals are available to youth, families, schools, and communities.
PROGRAMS
Ambassadors Study Circles
Collaborating with Montgomery County Public Schools, youth will participate in discussions focusing on race and ethnicity and how it affects student achievement. Dialogue and cultural competence will develop among teens from different backgrounds.
After School Activities Project
ASAP is offered to middle school and high school aged youth. ESOL acculturation during and after school; Go Girls, a group designed to target at-risk females and provide programs that improve their self esteem, and the Man II Man mentoring program for middle school males.
Benchmarks
This after school program offers academic enrichment and life skills to middle school youth residing in the greater Rosemary Hills community. This program is provided in collaboration with the Silver Spring Team/Rosemary Hills Primary School.
Building on Strengths
BOSS students with learning differences improve competency in problem solving and thinking skills. Youth learn to take responsibility for actions, be considerate of others, and work together to reach individual and group goals. Parents learn ways to help students become successful. Volunteer tutors work with students individually.
Carroll Avenue & Quebec Terrace
The CAQT Community Center offers an after-school Homework Club, the Man II Man mentoring program, a Literacy Program, computer education, youth employment training, counseling, case management, parent support groups, recreation, adult ESOL (English language) classes, volunteer development, and community events.
Community Connections
This program is comprised of three components:
• Recreation (in collaboration with MCPS and MCRD) -- targeting students that are below the 2.0 grade-point average to foster school attachment and decrease truancy
• Academic Support -- addressing academic performance and the achievement gap through tutoring and mentoring.
• Parenting/Community Component -- geared towards increasing parent/community involvement through outreach with programs like "Conquista tus Suensos."
Horizons
YFS delivers on site school intervention programs to address climate issues at the school, specifically bullying, conflict resolution, and integration among groups. Cooperative playgrounds, bus behavior intervention, and classroom meeting trainings are examples of services provided to schools in order to address the issues of concern to that community.
Linkages to Learning
Mental health and case management services are offered in eleven schools in the Blair, Springbrook, and Paint Branch Clusters. Linkages staff work closely with families to improve social, economic, health, and emotional issues that interfere with the academic success of the child.
Mentoring Program
This is a multi-agency collaborative initiative among Montgomery County Public Schools, the Department of Health & Human Services, the Department of Juvenile Services, and the Circuit Court of Montgomery County. The mission is to match court involved youth with adult mentors who would establish a caring, trusted, and committed relationship and provide support, friendship, counsel, reinforcement, and serve as positive role models to the young people. YMCA mentors will help the young people cope with their life circumstances and develop the life-skills needed to make positive choices. If you are interested in becoming a Mentor, please call Ottoniel Perez at 301-587-5700 or email: yfsemail@ymcadc.org.
Nob Hill
This Community Center offers an after-school Homework Club, Literacy Program, recreation, volunteer development, and community events.
Smart Choices
Middle and high school students, female and male, learn decision-making skills relating to sexual relationships, drugs, friendships, family, and school conflict. They meet as a group to support each other in the role of parent and a student. The goal is for the young parents to complete high school and have a forum to discuss issues that may impede their progress.
Sports Mentoring
This program offers young people an opportunity to bond with positive role models while participating in an activity they enjoy. While competing with a team, participants learn to build relationships with peers.
FUNDING SOURCES
YMCA Youth & Family Services is funded by Montgomery County Department of Health & Human Services; Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs; JC Penney; Montgomery County Collaboration Council for Children, Youth & Families; Northwest Park Weed & Seed/Silver Spring Regional Center; United Way; Tiger Woods Foundation; Takoma Park Foundation; the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington; and donations from individuals, community groups and local businesses. We are grateful for this financial support, as well as that given by our dedicated volunteers and AmeriCorps members.
FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES:
All requests for media interviews or filming/photography at branches must go through the YMCA of Metropolitan Washington Communications Department. Please call 202-797-4497 for media requests. We make every effort to respond to media inquiries in a timely manner.
Questions? Contact Youth & Family Services at 301-587-5700.
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