COMPREHENSIVE YOUTH SERVICES

MISSION

Comprehensive Youth Services (CYS) works to eliminate child abuse and neglect and to help strengthen families in the County of Fresno. CYS provides individual, family and group counseling services to children, youth and families. CYS also offers a range of supportive services including anger management, parenting classes, and other prevention, intervention and treatment services designed to strengthen the resiliency of children, adolescents and families.   

POPULATIONS –AT-RISK

Comprehensive Youth Services serves children and adolescents that have been exposed to violence in their homes, or that are at risk of being abused or neglected. CYS also addresses the needs of the parents of families at high risk of experiencing incidents of child maltreatment.

COMMUNITY CONTEXT OF CYS

CYS provides education on child abuse prevention to schools, community groups, and business in Fresno County.

It offers on campus crisis counseling at several high school and elementary school sites under Fresno Unified School District and Fresno County.

This agency also has a neighborhood resource center in Jefferson Elementary School in Sanger. This center provides services and activities to educate and develop skills that are designed to improve the condition of children and families living in the surrounding neighborhood.

COMMUNITY CONTEXT CONTINUED CYS is also the only social

service agency to offer FFT (Functional Family Therapy-- an intervention program with high success rates) in the county of Fresno. FFT is used with at-risk youth and with those involved in the juvenile justice system and their families.

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

1. Board of Directors

2. Executive Director

3. Program Supervisors

4. Clinicians, Case Managers and Clerical Staff

AGENCY PRACTICES

All of the efforts and services of CYS revolve around preventing all forms of child abuse.

-parenting classes

-supervised exchanges

-supervised visits

-therapeutic supervised visits

-counseling services for parents going through a divorce or caring for children with behavioral problems

-anger management courses for adults

AGENCY PRACTICES CONTINUED

The counseling services offered at this agency also focus on helping victims of child abuse and neglect heal.

These services are also offered to children affected by the separation or divorce of their parents.

Anger management courses are also made available to adolescents.

MAIN SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE

Comprehensive Youth Services deals primarily with the social justice issue of child welfare. This agency exists to help prevent child abuse among the families in Fresno County and to help treat those families that have been affected by child abuse.

SOCIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL WORK VALUES, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

CYS seeks to be an important collaborator in the efforts to decrease the occurrence of child maltreatment in the county of Fresno. It provides resources that bring about empowerment to the children that have experienced abuse.

This agency acknowledges the importance that the relationship between children and their family has on the enhancement of the wellbeing of the abused child or of the child at risk of being abused.

CYS respects the right of children to confidentiality (with the exception of the suspicion of child or elder abuse, or the threat of suicide or homicide). As a result children may feel more comfortable expressing their feelings and concerns during counseling without the fear that their parents or guardians will learn about what was discussed between them and their clinician.