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For more than 30 years, the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) has provided national leadership on youth and family issues. FYSB promotes positive outcomes for children, youth, and families by supporting a wide range of comprehensive services and collaborations at the local, Tribal, State, and national levels.
FYSB is a bureau within the Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The core of FYSB’s mission is Positive Youth Development. This approach suggests that giving young people positive opportunities and helping them reach their full potential is the best way to prevent them from engaging in risky behaviors. When young people have the chance to exercise leadership, build skills, and get involved, they gain self-confidence, trust, and practical knowledge—qualities that help them grow into healthy, happy, self-sufficient adults.
FYSB collaborates with other Federal partners to convene conferences, meetings, and forums for youth and youth-serving professionals and to coordinate Federal policies and programs related to the Nation’s young people. The Bureau involves youth in reviewing grant proposals from community- and faith-based organizations, believing that young people know best what makes a good youth program. Several crisis hotlines supported by FYSB also give young people opportunities to volunteer assistance to their peers and communities.
DIVISION OF YOUTH SERVICES
FYSB’s Division of Youth Services supports local community- and faith-based organizations in their efforts to help two groups of young people in great need: runaway and homeless youth and children of prisoners. The division also sponsors special initiatives that promote Positive Youth Development for all young people.
Runaway and Homeless Youth Programs
Each year, thousands of U.S. youth run
away from home, are asked to leave their
homes, or become homeless. FYSB funds
organizations and shelters that serve and
protect these young people.
Grant Programs
Through the Basic Center Program, community-based organizations
provide short-term shelter and address the immediate needs of
runaway and homeless youth and their families. Youth receive emergency
shelter, food, clothing, counseling, and referrals for health
care. Basic Centers seek to reunite young people with their families
whenever possible or to arrange appropriate alternative placements.
The Transitional Living Program for Older Homeless Youth
promotes the independence of youth between 16 and 21 years old
who are unable to return to their homes. Over a period of up to
18 months (with an additional 180 days for youth younger than
18), grantees provide housing and a range of services, including
life skills training, financial literacy instruction, and education
and employment services. Youth might live in group homes or in
their own apartments, depending on the program and each young
person’s independent living skills.
The Street Outreach Program reaches youth at their most vulnerable.
Grantees conduct street-based education and outreach and offer
emergency shelter and related services to young people who have
been, or who are at risk of being, sexually abused or exploited.
A Network of Support
FYSB’s Runaway and Homeless Youth Program grantees and other adults who want to help youth in need get assistance from FYSB’s “Network of Support,” which includes:
National Runaway Switchboard
Since 1974, the National Runaway Switchboard has been the official “national communications system” authorized by Congress to help runaway and homeless youth make contact with their families and with service providers. The 24-hour hotline handles more than 115,000 calls a year.
1-800-RUNAWAY
www.1800runaway.org
info@nrscrisisline.org
Training and Technical Assistance
FYSB’s training and technical assistance providers answer grantees’ day-to-day program management questions and assist organizations applying for FYSB grants. Providers offer trainings, forums, networking events, newsletters, and technical assistance publications. To find a training and technical assistance provider, go to www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb/content/youthdivision/resources/ ttafactsheet.htm.
Runaway and Homeless Youth Management Information System (RHYMIS)
RHYMIS is an automated management information tool that captures data on the runaway and homeless youth served by FYSB grantee programs, including demographics and services provided to them. These statistics are accessible via the Web.
1-800-RHYMIS4
extranet.acf.hhs.gov/rhymis
rhymis_help@csc.com
National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY)
NCFY provides grantees and the public with information about effective strategies for supporting young people and families. A searchable online literature database contains abstracts of thousands of youth-related publications. NCFY publications about youth development issues are requested for conferences, trainings, and community outreach efforts.
(301) 608-8098
ncfy.acf.hhs.gov
ncfy@acf.hhs.gov
Special Initiatives
FYSB’s research and demonstration projects and other special initiatives advance Positive Youth Development and create opportunities for young people to contribute to their communities. Past projects have expanded access to shelters for minority youth, improved services in rural areas, tested home-based services, and worked to prevent exploitation of young people.
Currently, nine States participate in the Positive Youth Development State and Local Collaboration Demonstration Projects, a 5-year FYSB initiative to promote Positive Youth Development by encouraging communication and collaboration between State and local agencies and community members.
Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program
Approximately 2 million children and youth in the United States have at least one parent in a Federal or State correctional facility. These young people need adult and community support. Data indicate that young people who have adult mentors are more likely to develop trusting relationships with supportive, caring adults and less likely to get in trouble.
Congress established the Mentoring Children of Prisoners Program to provide 100,000 new mentors to children and youth of incarcerated parents. More than 200 community- and faith-based organizations and State and local governments across the country receive grants from FYSB to match adult mentors with children and youth of prisoners.
The program works to strengthen bonds between children and their parents whenever possible and appropriate, to preserve families, and to cultivate mentors from within the child’s family and community.
DIVISION OF ABSTINENCE
To help youth make smart choices about their health and future, FYSB’s Abstinence Education Programs promote abstinence from sexual activity. The division also has collaborated with other Federal offices to create print and online abstinence resources for youth and parents, available at www.4parents.gov.
Community-Based Abstinence Education Program
FYSB’s Community-Based Abstinence Education Program provides funding to public and private entities to develop and implement abstinence education programs for young people ages 12 to 18. Programs give adolescents information, skills, and encouragement to postpone sexual activity until marriage. Through these efforts, the programs seek to reduce the number of youth who engage in premarital sexual activity, as well as the incidence of out-ofwedlock births, sexually transmitted diseases, and other risks associated with premarital sex. FYSB charges grantees with developing culturally sensitive and age-appropriate abstinence education approaches, consistent with the needs of a diverse population of adolescents.
State Abstinence Education Program
FYSB’s State Abstinence Education Program grants enable States to create abstinence education programs or augment existing ones and, if the States chooses, provide mentoring, counseling, and adult supervision to promote abstinence from sexual activity. The program helps States teach their young people the social, psychological, and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity. FYSB awards abstinence education funds to States proportionally, based on the number of low-income children in each State.
DIVISION OF FAMILY VIOLENCE
FYSB’s Division of Family Violence funds programs that provide shelter and related services, such as emergency transportation and child care, to victims of family violence. The division also supports organizations offering a range of resources related to family violence, from training and technical assistance for service providers to crisis counseling and legal and health services for victims.
Formula Programs
FYSB awards formula grants to State agencies, Territories, and Indian Tribes operating battered women’s shelters and offering crisis counseling, information and referral, legal and service advocacy, transportation, emergency child care, and health care referrals. FYSB also provides funding to State domestic violence coalitions that provide technical assistance and training to local domestic violence programs.
Discretionary Programs
Each year, FYSB funds a range of discretionary programs in family violence prevention and services. The programs aim to improve family violence prevention, victim protection, service delivery and design, data collection on the incidence of family violence, and understanding of issues related to family violence.
Past funding priorities have included services for disabled and immigrant victims of domestic violence, prevention of adolescent dating violence, and minority training grants in domestic violence for historically Black, Hispanic-serving, and Tribal colleges and universities.
Supporting Victims of Domestic Violence and Service Providers
To augment the services provided by its family violence prevention and services grant programs and to continually improve the systems that address family violence, FYSB funds a national hotline for victims and their families, as well as a network of resource centers specializing in issues related to domestic violence.
National Domestic Violence Hotline
The National Domestic Violence Hotline aids victims of domestic violence 24 hours a day. Hotline advocates assist victims, and anyone calling on their behalf, by providing crisis intervention, safety planning, and referrals to local service providers. The hotline receives more than 16,000 calls a month.
800-799-SAFE (7233)
www.ndvh.org
National Domestic Violence Resource Network
Comprised of five centers, FYSB’s National Domestic Violence Resource Network works to strengthen the existing support systems serving battered women, their children, and other victims of domestic violence.
National Resource Center on Domestic Violence 800-537-2238
Resource Center on Civil and Criminal Law (Battered Women’s Justice Project) 800-903-0111 Resource Center on Child Custody Protection 800-527-3223
Health Resource Center on Domestic Violence 888-792-2873 800-313-1310
Sacred Circle (National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women) 877-733-7623
For more information about the resource network, go to
www.acf. hhs.gov/programs/fysb/content/familyviolence/index.htm.
for more information
For up-to-date information about FYSB and its programs,
go to www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/fysb, or contact
National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth
P.O. Box 13505
Silver Spring, MD 20911-3505
301-608-8098
ncfy@acf.hhs.gov
ncfy.acf.hhs.gov
For information about open funding opportunities,
go to the Federal Government’s central funding database,
Grants.gov, or visit the Administration for Children and
Families Grant Opportunities Web site,
www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/index.html.
This brochure was developed for the Family and Youth Services Bureau; Administration on Children, Youth and Families; Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; by JBS International, Inc., under contract No. GS10F0285K to manage the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth.
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