Youth Empowerment Services

Assisting Children and Adolescents with Serious Emotional Disturbances

When a child or adolescent is diagnosed with a serious emotional disturbance, the reality of the need for additional support and home modifications for the youth’s care and respite for the youth’s caregivers can be overwhelming.

Youth Empowerment Services (YES) provides assistance to children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbances so that they can live in the community with their families.

YES Goals

• Reduce out-of-home placements and inpatient psychiatric treatment
• Provide a more complete continuum of community-based services and supports
• Ensure families have access to parent partners and other flexible non-traditional support services
• Prevent entry into the foster care system and relinquishment of parental custody
• Improve children and adolescent clinical and functional outcomes

YES Services

• Adaptive Aids and Supports
• Community Living Supports (CLS)
• Family Supports
• Minor Home Modifications
• Non-Medical Transportation
• Paraprofessional Services
• Respite
• Specialized Therapies
• Supportive Family Based Alternatives (SFA)
• Transitional Services

To Qualify for Youth Empowerment Services

The Child or Adolescent Must:

• Be 3-18 years old
• Live in Lubbock, Lynn, Cochran, Crosby or Hockley counties
• Reside in a non-institutional setting with the child’s or adolescent’s legally authorized representative; or in the child’s or adolescent’s own home or apartment, if legally emancipated
• Have serious functional impairment or acute severe psychiatric symptoms as indicated by:
  • Risk of Self-harm
  • Disruptive or Aggressive Behavior
  • Lack of Family Resources
  • School Behavior
  • Current Psychiatric Diagnosis
• Have a reasonable expectation that, without YES, the child or adolescent would qualify for inpatient care
• Be Medicaid eligible