Tarrant County’s contracts with three local non-profit organizations allegedly seeking to provide services to at-risk youth ended over the weekend after the Tarrant County Juvenile Board opted not to renew them at a meeting back earlier in the summer.
Members of the board voted on July 17 not to renew the contracts.
One of the affected groups was Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), which says it seeks “statewide system change.”
Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare and Judge Chris Wolfe advanced a motion to allow the contracts to lapse after raising concerns about some of the language on YAP’s website that discusses “systemic racism,” reported KERA News.
The board also accused the organization of being a left-leaning program that advocates for being soft on crime.
“YAP recognizes generational and structural impacts on educational, employment, health, and other systems across the U.S. and globally. By redirecting justice, child welfare, behavioral health, and other social services dollars from youth prisons and other residential facilities to communities where our program participants live, we are helping our systems partners achieve equity in their service delivery and outcomes, which are strengthened with our evidence-based model,” reads the group’s website.
YAP also posts online about how “youth of color” are “disproportionately represented in the U.S. youth criminal justice system.
“More recent reforms recognize the ineffective and often harmful impact of youth incarceration, and consequently we have seen significant reductions in the number of placements with increasing support for community-based alternatives. However, despite legislation in 1988 and then in 1992 to reduce disproportionate confinement, youth of color continue to be disproportionately represented at every stage in the nation’s youth justice system,” YAP’s website states.
Tarrant County’s contract with YAP was one of three that expired on August 31. The other two involved programs under Santa Fe Youth Services, which is a division of YAP.
The Dallas Express reached out to YAP for comment regarding the accusations, pressing the organization on its ideological worldview. Some of the questions and responses by a YAP spokesperson can be read below:
Why does YAP believe in system change?
For a half-century in partnership with youth justice, child welfare, behavioral health, education, and other public systems, Youth Advocate Programs (YAP), Inc., has delivered evidence-based, community-based youth and family rehabilitative and behavioral health wraparound services as an alternative to youth incarceration, residential child welfare and behavioral health care, and other out-of-home placements. Our services have been proven to reduce recidivism while keeping youth, families, and communities safe and saving taxpayer dollars. More recently, we’ve worked with cities to incorporate our youth and parent/guardian family wraparound services with evidence-based community violence intervention approaches to support public safety efforts.
Is this social justice activism that’s being promoted?
YAP is not an activism organization. Rather, it’s a five-decades-old nonpartisan nonprofit in 35 states and Washington DC that provides safe and effective community-based services as an alternative to youth incarceration, child welfare group homes, residential psychiatric care, and other out-of-home placements. YAP’s neighborhood-based Staff Advocates are paid employees who are trained to advocate for our program participants and empower them to advocate for themselves by connecting them and their parents and guardians with individualized educational, economic, and emotional tools to put their lives on a positive course. Our employees work directly and individually with youth and families, firming their foundation by connecting them with tools that address their individualized economic, educational, and emotional challenges — with practices that incorporate accountability, restorative justice, respect for victims’ rights, and giving back to their communities — so that our program participants are successful once our services end.
How many employees vote Democrat from your org? How many genders are there?
YAP is a nonpartisan organization that does not ask employees how they vote, and our employees, like the young people and families we serve, represent the wide and varying scope of America. Politics and ideology are not a part of our work; we focus on serving youth and families, giving them every opportunity we can to help them put their lives on a positive course.
Do you believe in systemic racism?
With our no reject, no eject policy, we accept all referrals from our government partners. With most of our participants living in poverty and given the disproportionate numbers of youth of color we serve (nearly 70% of our youth justice, child welfare, education, and other systems referrals), we are in a unique position to give our government partners an opportunity to reduce disparities with great outcomes for all youth and families, despite their background.
Do you treat every young person equally regardless of political affiliation?
Yes, absolutely. Founded in 1975, YAP is a nonpartisan national nonprofit organization that does not ask employees or youth and families we serve questions about their political affiliation or politics. Our employees and staff live in the urban, rural, and suburban communities in 35 states and the District of Columbia that we serve, fully representing America politically and demographically.